Exploring Fire Safety Challenges on Construction Sites: Insights from Stakeholders

Construction sites face significant fire safety challenges due to flammable materials, hot work, a dynamic environment, and large workforces. Despite efforts to improve construction safety, fire incidents continue to pose a significant risk to construction workers, properties, and surrounding buildings. This paper aims to identify and prioritize current construction fire safety challenges and further guide future research directions. A structured hybrid workshop was conducted to gather insights from relevant stakeholders across industry, health and safety organizations, and standards organizations. Prior to the workshop, challenges were identified through literature and an online survey completed by participants. In the first part of the workshop, participants ranked the challenges individually, and the mean rank of each challenge was calculated. In the second part, participants were divided into four groups, and a new ranking was generated through group discussions. Finally, an open discussion between different groups provided further insights. This study identified 29 challenges across four broader categories: incident investigation, risk assessment, risk response planning, and monitoring and detection. The top challenges in each category were: incomplete analysis of contributing factors, unclear relationship between risk factors and fire outcomes, lack of training in recognizing fire hazards, and limitations of manual fire watches. By identifying key and urgent challenges, this study provides valuable insights for the further improvement of construction fire safety.