Abstract
Fire safety on construction sites has been rarely studied because fire accidents have a lower occurrence compared to construction’s “Fatal Four”. Despite the lower occurrence, construction fire accidents tend to have a larger severity of impact. This study aims at using news media data and big data analysis techniques to identify patterns and factors related to fire accidents on construction sites. News reports on various construction accidents covered by news media were first collected through web crawling. Then, the authors identified the level of media exposure for various keywords related to construction accidents and analyzed the similarities between them. The results show that the level of media exposure for fire accidents on construction sites is much higher than for fall accidents, which suggests that fire accidents may have a greater impact on the surroundings than other accidents. It was found that the main causes of fire accidents on construction sites are violations of fire safety regulations and the absence of inspections, which could be sufficiently prevented. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by exploring factors related to fire safety on construction sites and their interrelationships as well as providing evidence that the fire type should be emphasized in safety-related regulations and codes on construction sites.
Highlights
Fire accidents are greatly affected by external environments, such as weather and surrounding buildings or hazards, making them difficult to control and prevent [1]
This study contributes to the body of knowledge by exploring the factors of construction site fire and providing relationships between factors through the collection of media big data on fire accidents on construction sites
Researchers have rarely focused on fire safety on construction sites due to its low occurrence compared with other accidents, such as falls
Summary
Fire accidents are greatly affected by external environments, such as weather and surrounding buildings or hazards, making them difficult to control and prevent [1] This is especially dangerous on building construction sites because fire safety equipment such as sprinklers and fire alarms may not be completed depending on the progress of construction [2]. Since the “Fatal Four” is based on the frequency of accidents on construction sites, fire accidents are excluded. It has a limitation in not considering various impacts such as the secondary spread of accidents. According to the Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA), 20.5% of fatal workplace accidents occur on construction sites [4]. In order to increase fire safety on construction sites, it is necessary to collect big data related to fire accidents on construction sites and analyze the factors of fire using various approaches
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