Heat Illness Prevention Plan Template: What a Real California §3395/§3396 Plan Actually Contains
Search “heat illness prevention plan template California” and you will find a stack of downloadable Word documents from state agencies, insurance carriers, and trade groups. Most of them are accurate at a generic level.
Search “heat illness prevention plan template California” and you will find a stack of downloadable Word documents from state agencies, insurance carriers, and trade groups. Most of them are accurate at a generic level. None of them are the plan Cal/OSHA expects to see on your wall.
The standards say it plainly: the plan must be “specific and customized to the employer’s operations.” A template you downloaded yesterday with another company’s name in the header does not meet that bar. When an inspector asks for your Heat Illness Prevention Plan, they are checking whether the document reflects your actual facility, your actual work locations, your actual emergency response procedure, and whether your supervisors and employees have been trained on it.
This piece walks through what a real California Heat Illness Prevention Plan contains under both §3395 (outdoor) and §3396 (indoor). It is the structure CDMS uses when we build these plans for facilities across California. For the broader service, see our heat illness prevention service for California facilities.
Two California Standards, One Plan
California is one of the few states with mandatory heat illness rules, and as of mid-2024 it has two of them.
- §3395 (outdoor) has been in force since 2006. It applies to any California employer with outdoor workers.
- §3396 (indoor) took effect July 23, 2024. It applies to all indoor work areas that reach 82°F while employees are present; the full assessment and control requirements kick in at 87°F (temperature or heat index), and also at 82°F where employees wear heat-restrictive clothing or work in a high radiant heat area. Workplaces with a roof and enclosed sides are considered indoor.
Most facilities CDMS works with need to address both. A warehouse with a loading dock, a manufacturing site with an outdoor staging yard, a food processor with a refrigerated production floor and an outdoor receiving area: all of these have exposure under both standards. The plan covers them in one document, with clearly marked sections for each environment.
What’s Different Between Them
| Element | §3395 Outdoor | §3396 Indoor |
|---|---|---|
| Trigger | All outdoor work | All indoor areas reaching 82°F while employees are present |
| Shade / cool-down | Shade required when temp reaches 80°F | Cool-down area maintained below 82°F |
| High-heat / control measures | High-heat procedures at 95°F (communication, observation, pre-shift meetings, water reminders; agriculture adds a mandatory cool-down rest) | Control measures at 87°F (temperature or heat index), and at 82°F with heat-restrictive clothing or high radiant heat |
| Exceptions | None | Incidental exposure under 15 min in any 60-min period (does not apply to vehicles without working AC or to shipping/intermodal containers) |
| Language access | Training in language understood by employees | Plan and training in English plus language understood by the majority of workers |
What the Plan Has to Contain
A compliant plan covers the same five operational elements under either standard. The content changes by environment; the structure does not.
1. Procedures for Providing Water
The regulation is specific: one quart per employee per hour, for the entire shift. For an eight-hour shift, that is roughly two gallons per person. The plan documents where water is located, how it is replenished, who is responsible for keeping it stocked, and the temperature at which it is kept (suitably cool). Beverages like Gatorade or coffee may be offered as a supplement, but they do not replace the required potable drinking water.
When we walk a facility, the most common gap we find is not the absence of water. It is water that is too far from the work area, water that runs out by mid-shift, or water that nobody is specifically responsible for refilling.
2. Procedures for Shade or Cool-Down Areas
Outdoor: shade must be available when temperatures exceed 80°F and on request at any temperature. Workers must be able to take a five-minute (or longer) preventative cool-down rest whenever they feel the need.
Indoor: a cool-down area is required, maintained below 82°F, shielded from direct sunlight and high-radiant heat sources, and large enough to hold the number of employees who would reasonably need it at one time.
The plan names the locations. “Shaded picnic table at the southwest corner of the yard.” “Air-conditioned breakroom adjacent to the warehouse, capacity 12.” Inspectors are not looking for a paragraph that says “shade is provided.” They are looking for a specific location and a description that matches what they observe.
3. Temperature and Heat Index Measurement
Under §3396, you have to measure. The plan describes how. Most facilities CDMS works with use a thermometer/hygrometer with data logging, placed in the work areas occupied for 15 minutes per hour or more. South-facing and west-facing walls, glass overhead doors, and roofs without insulation all push indoor temperatures up faster than the outside reading suggests.
When the temperature or heat index reaches 87°F (or 82°F where employees wear heat-restrictive clothing or work in a high radiant heat area), the plan documents the heat control measures the facility will use: increased airflow, evaporative cooling, work/rest cycles, adjusted scheduling, or engineering controls. Generic language (“controls will be implemented”) does not satisfy this requirement.
4. Acclimatization
Newly assigned employees need close observation during their first 14 days of work in the heat, and during a heat wave every employee falls under acclimatization watch. (Re-acclimatizing employees returning from an extended absence is a recommended best practice, not a specific §3395/§3396 requirement.) The plan spells out who watches whom, what symptoms trigger intervention, and what the intervention is.
5. Emergency Response
What does a supervisor do if an employee shows signs of heat illness? The plan names the steps in order: stop work, move to cool-down, provide water, monitor symptoms, call 911 if signs are serious. It also documents how emergency services are directed to the facility (gate codes, building entrances, who meets the responders), and it identifies who has authority to call 911 without checking with anyone first.
Training: Required Before the Work Starts
Both standards require employee and supervisor training before any work begins where heat exposure is a risk. The training topics are spelled out in the regulations:
- Environmental and personal risk factors for heat illness
- Importance of frequent water consumption
- Importance of acclimatization
- Types of heat illness and their signs and symptoms
- Importance of immediately reporting symptoms
- Procedures for responding to possible heat illness
- Procedures for contacting and directing emergency medical services
The §3396 plan and training must be provided in English and any language understood by the majority of workers. For most CDMS clients in California, that means English and Spanish. There is no refresher training requirement under the indoor standard, but most facilities still build refresher training into their annual safety cycle, both for retention and because the same employees often have refresher requirements under other Cal/OSHA programs in the IIPP umbrella this plan slots into.
Why a Downloaded Template Falls Short
Cal/OSHA enforces against the outdoor §3395 standard aggressively. It is the second most-cited Cal/OSHA infraction. The first willful violation under §3395 carried fines of $276,000. The indoor standard is newer, but the enforcement pattern is likely to follow.
A generic template fails the “specific and customized” test in three predictable ways:
It references locations that do not exist at your facility (or it leaves the location lines blank).
It assigns responsibility to a “designated supervisor” without naming anyone.
It has not been trained on. Cal/OSHA will ask employees what the plan says. If they have never seen it, the document on the shelf does not save the inspection.
CDMS builds these plans the same way every time: we come to the site, walk the work areas, identify the heat exposure conditions specific to that facility (south-facing glass doors, metal roofs, outdoor staging yards, refrigerated lines that put workers between two temperature extremes), name the actual locations and people in the plan, and train the supervisors and employees on what it says. The deliverable is one document covering both §3395 and §3396 where both apply, written in English and Spanish for facilities that need both, with the OSHA-required training topics built into the supervisor briefing.
Trusted throughout California
BSY started working with CDMS last year after our in-house EHS person departed the company. CDMS reviewed our existing operational permits as well as any additional Federal, State and Local regulations that could apply and helped us to create a comprehensive compliance calendar to track regulatory deadlines and submittal due dates. The CDMS team does an excellent job of tracking everything and can be relied upon to complete the forms accurately and assist with submittals, allowing me to focus on our business.
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