Description
Plan, coordinate, and execute explosive operations for demolition and material displacement while ensuring safe handling, storage, transport, and regulatory compliance. Develop blast designs, supervise setup and initiation, assess risk, and maintain required records.
- • Create detailed drill and blast designs and drawings.
- • Assess blast sites, determine charge requirements, and enforce safety and regulatory standards.
- • Design blast initiation timing and sequencing.
- • Establish exclusion zones and coordinate site clearances before firing.
- • Position and secure charges and initiate blasts to achieve planned results.
- • Load and stem blast holes in accordance with approved procedures.
- • Lay out drilling and blast patterns and issue drilling instructions.
- • Maintain explosives inventories, permits, and compliance records.
- • Verify hole depths and drilling parameters prior to loading.
- • Connect initiation systems and stem or cover charges as required.
- • Configure surface connections to complete the blast circuit.
- • Stage and assemble blasting equipment and initiation devices per specifications.
- • Confirm successful initiation and post-blast outcomes using instrumentation and observation.
- • Transport, handle, and store energetic materials following safety protocols.
- • Activate initiation systems to conduct single or sequenced blasts.
- • Operate vehicles to deliver explosives and equipment to sites.
- • Prepare initiation components to specified lengths and configurations.
- • Monitor stock levels and order supplies.
- • Inspect and maintain blasting tools, vehicles, and related electrical equipment.
- • Use radios or field telephones to transmit and receive blast information.
- • Prepare and service perforating or specialty tools when required.
- • Clean and service blast equipment and tooling.
- • Deploy remote or downhole initiation tools and position them with measuring devices when applicable.
- • Record ground conditions and adjust plans to geological findings.
- • Operate support equipment to clean and prepare holes.
- • Set up and operate hoists, drills, and other equipment to bore charge holes.
- • Direct crane and rigging operations to move equipment safely.
Related specializations
Interview options
Interview options
Interviewee gender
Interviewee accent
Interview time
Source
Tasks & skills:
O*NET occupational data (work activities, skills, knowledge).
Learn more
Sources & Standards:
This site includes information from O*NET by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA), used under the CC BY 4.0 license. Career Clutch has modified some of this information for student readability. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.
Last reviewed: Jan 2026
