Fire safety inspections during construction

Introduction

As a safety manager, you want to ensure the construction site runs safely, without any accidents that endanger workers or damage property. In recent years, numerous construction projects have made headlines due to significant fire damage. But fires are preventable. You can take various measures to reduce the risk and create a safe construction site. One measure is conducting continuous fire safety inspections. However, traditional methods present many challenges, including a lack of standardization, disjointed processes for addressing issues, and disorganized archiving of inspection forms, tasks, and photos.

The challenge

Fire safety always has been, and always will be, one of the most important aspects on construction sites. Fire hazards pose a risk to the physical construction, and to everyone on the construction site.

As a safety manager, you want to make sure the construction site takes all necessary measures to prevent fire risk. Inspecting the construction site for potential fire hazards, as well as blocked escape routes, material storage, and available fire prevention gear, should be a consistent part of your safety inspections.

Local regulations or the project contract may require regular inspections. If questions arise, or authorities perform unannounced spot checks, you need to prove that qualified personnel have performed inspections regularly. You want to document, address, and follow up on detected fire safety issues.

How Dalux solves this

Safety inspections in Dalux specifically support this challenge as part of the safety features. This way, fire safety becomes a natural aspect of your regular safety inspections.

When you detect a safety issue, you can send a task directly to the responsible contractor and follow up for quick resolution. Standardized inspections follow regulations and remain available for review.

The result

With the safety feature in Dalux, you get:

• Reduced risk: Detect and flag fire hazards early
• Clear resolution: Safety issues have clear responsibility and can easily be followed up on
• Fast and audit-ready inspections: Standardized templates can be used across projects for reliable documentation

Safety inspections with Dalux

With the safety features in Dalux anyone on the construction site can create a safety observation and report a safety concern. Your safety team can send safety issues directly to contractors.

With safety inspections in Dalux, you can include fire safety aspects in your regular safety rounds. If the inspection reporting tool is efficient and easy to use, your safety team can focus entirely on the construction site without worrying about losing information.

Fire safety should be a designated safety category, checked alongside other safety aspects. The category should contain all relevant subcategories that your safety team documents and pays attention to. These categories often align with rules and regulations published by organizations, such as NFPA (National Fire Protection Association), IBC (International Building Code), HSE (Health and Safety Executive), and other local authority requirements.

This includes but is not limited to:

• Hot work operations: Ongoing hot works have proper permission and follow safety protocols. See how hot work permits can be handled in Dalux here: Approve hot work with hold point checklists
• Housekeeping and waste management: No fire hazards are stored outside designated waste areas, and flammable liquids or gases are stored appropriately.
• Fire protection systems: Temporary fire alarms and fire extinguishers are available and functional.
• Access routes and water supply: Emergency vehicles have clear access, and water supply for the fire department is guaranteed.
• Escape paths: Escape paths are not blocked, and exit signs and markings are clear and visible.
• Compartmentation and passive fire stopping: Fire barriers, draft stops, and wall penetrations follow regulation and agreed procedures.
• Temporary facilities and storage: Safe distance for trailers, heating devices, smoking restrictions, and material staging.

You can build the categories once and reuse them throughout this and other projects. The templates for 'Safety inspections' and 'Safety issues' include these categories automatically.

When your safety team performs a safety inspection on the construction site, they evaluate whether the construction complies with safety parameters. The documentation is created digitally in the Dalux app on their mobile device. If something does not meet the standards, they create a safety issue directly in the inspection form.

Dalux then sends the issue to the construction manager or the contractor, depending on what you agreed on. You can tie every issue directly to a responsible party and follow up to ensure someone addresses it swiftly. You can add a deadline to each issue, and Dalux automatically reminds contractors about overdue tasks. If a task is still unresolved, you can also send reminders yourself.

Export inspection data as reports, to give you documentation of your fire safety measures to share with authorities and insurers.

Zero accident culture

Using the safety features in Dalux turns fire safety into a continuous, repeatable process performed digitally on site, with all teams working toward a zero-accident culture.

With the safety features in Dalux, you get:

• Early risk detection: Fire safety built into periodic inspections catches hazards before they escalate
• Followed-up, audit-ready issues: Every fire safety issue is followed up with contractors and documented with a clear audit trail
• Standardized procedures: Consistent templates speed up inspections and give you documentation to share with authorities and insurers