Assesment of Electrical Safety in Afghanistan

On April 19, 2009, we began a one week assessment of the electrical safety of DoD facilities occupied or constructed by U.S. personnel and contractors in Afghanistan. The assessment team performed work at Bagram Airfield (BAF), Forward Operating Base (FOB) Altimur, FOB Sharana, Kandahar Airfield (KAF), Camp Brown, FOB Tarin Kowt, FOB Spin Boldak, Camp Phoenix, and Camp Eggers. We used a subject matter expert (senior electrician from A Co., 249th Engineer Battalion (Prime Power))to assess the electrical safety and code compliance of facilities visited at various locations. The team's subject matter expert performed limited assessments of electrical components at select facilities in Afghanistan. The subject matter expert did not conduct full electrical inspections of each facility due to time constraints in country. Subsequent to departing Afghanistan, the team provided U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) briefing charts with the team's preliminary observations and recommendations. We requested CENTCOM provide comments regarding our observations and recommendations. The Command provided preliminary comments on May 11, 2009. Those comments were incorporated into the draft and final reports. See Appendix D for comments provided by CENTCOM to the preliminary observations and recommendations. CENTCOM and the Defense Contract management Agency (DCMA) provided comments to the draft report on June 29, 2009, and July 9, 2009, respectively. See Appendix E for comments to the draft report provided by CENTCOM and DCMA.