The Importance of Fire Safety in the Construction Industry
The construction industry is one of the most dangerous working environments, with risks such as falling from a height, injuries from operating tools, and fire hazards being some of the biggest causes of injuries. As well as being a danger from a health and safety perspective, construction site fires can cause severe damage to property and expensive equipment.
What are the main causes of construction site fires?
Hot works is a major fire hazard, responsible for a fifth of all construction site fires in England. Another concern for construction site managers is that deliberate fires have been increasing in recent years. Around 40% of all construction fires are deliberately caused, which is an alarming percentage.
Of the accidental fires, according to the Home Office the top causes of reported fires on construction sites were:
Reducing fires on construction sites
The good news is that the overall number of construction site fires showed signs of reducing, going from 410 in 2017/18 to 365 in 2018/19. There are a number of reasons for this, such as improved fire risk assessments, better construction worker training, and most significantly, advances in fire safety technology.
Fire warning systems have been vastly improved, using more sophisticated technology to help deter arsonists, as well as providing faster alerts when a fire starts. The principal contractor on a construction site is responsible for fire safety on the site, which includes conducting a comprehensive fire risk assessment and identifying and removing potential hazards.
Fire safety systems must be compliant with fire safety standards and the relevant codes of practice. Due to the typical temporary setup of construction sites, the best option will usually be to choose a wireless system, so that fire alarm units can easily be moved from one location to another, without requiring engineers to come out each time.
How the StarFire plan helps to prevent fires
StarFM specialises in construction site security and fire safety and provides the highest quality of technology systems to improve security and reduce incidents of fire and vandalism.
The StarFire plan is a cost-effective monthly plan for construction sites to help prevent fires and to detect fires as quickly as possible. Using proven technology, the StarFire plan provides flexibility around the number of units set up in your network, adding more as and when the building work progresses and requires more units. They can also be used indoors and outdoors, to suit the requirements of your site.
When a fire is detected, an immediate site-wide alarm is triggered, ensuring that all people on the site are aware of the potential danger and the relevant action that can be taken to extinguish the fire or to call the fire brigade. The units have full EN54 Part 25 Compliant and meet the Battery requirements for BS5389 Part 1.
Find out more about how the StarFire plan can protect your construction site.
