Construction Informer

Fire safety is in the news and it reminded me of all the various ways fires can get started at construction sites. Some of the obvious include containers of gasoline, diesel fuel and other liquid fuels stored in unmarked locations. Without the proper signage people may not be aware they just lit up their cigarette next to a gas can. Electrical equipment can cause sparks at times so once again being aware of where to store the gas is important. Here are some other examples from recent news reports.

A 3,000 square foot home that was nearing completion sustained a half million in damages from a fire that started in the wee hours of the morning. Apparently the owners were staying in a guest house on the property. They were not hurt.

In Las Vegas the second floor of a building under construction caught fire and electrical insulation along with some tools were destroyed.

An ambulatory care center under construction in South Carolina was the scene of a fire that started from a stack of insulation that was on the roof. Buildings under construction often don’t have all the access in place yet so firefighters who would normally have approached from interior stairs ended up using construction ladders to get to the flames. In this case there wasn’t any structural damage to the building and the $9.6 million structure is still expected to be completed on time.

Construction debris on the roof of a new baseball stadium being built in North Carolina caught fire. Again, insulation was the fuel and in this case it was identified as styrofoam. Coincidentally, a relative of styrofoam insulation made of polyisocyanurate has a high R value per square inch but it too is combustible.

In another incident involving styrofoam it only took some sparks to cause a fire. In Utah workers were cutting some steel when the sparks from that operation caught styrofoam blocks on fire. This happened at an office building under construction.

So, besides flammable liquids posing the typical dangers it appears there could be a trend toward insulation fires. A daily trip around the job site with a critical eye toward potential fire hazards can net an added measure of fire safety to any project. Of course looking around for other safety hazards at the same time should yield safer work sites overall. It’s never easy to build safely, but factoring in the additional time to accommodate safety is a lot less painless than dealing with accidents.