TABLE OF CONTENTS Identifying sources of fuel, ignition and oxygen will undoubtedly assist in preparing a fire safety management strategy based upon a risk assessment approach. However, these areas are only hazards (something that has the potential to cause harm) and it will take human intervention in one form or another to change the hazards into risk, be it accidentally or deliberately. Determining the different causes of fire in the workplace is the next stage in the management process, as having identified the primary sources of harm and how they are caused will enable a robust fire safety management plan to be produced to prevent a fire starting.
This chapter will also include specific reference to causes of fires within construction and maintenance work with the inherent hazards and risks such operations bring, together with the preventive steps to manage them. This chapter discusses the following key elements:
The term accidental fire refers to all fires other than those which have been deliberately or maliciously started. There are a wide range of causes of fires within the workplace. These will to a certain extent reflect the use to which the workplace is put. It is also useful to consider causes of fires in vehicles as in many organisations a workplace may be a vehicle, such as in the case of a long distance lorry driver working for a haulage company.
Using the current statistics available it can be seen that that the common causes of major accidental fires in the...
