A ready-to-deliver toolbox talk for foremen and supervisors. 8-10 minute spoken script plus briefing register for operative sign-in.
Hot works is any job that makes heat, sparks or a flame, welding, disc cutting and grinding, brazing, soldering, blow torches, bitumen boilers. It's behind a big share of construction fires, and the worst ones often start hours after the work's finished. This talk covers the permit system, clearing the area, the fire watch, and gas cylinder safety.
Hot works starts more serious site fires than almost anything else, and a lot of the bad ones kick off long after everyone's gone home, from a spark that smouldered unnoticed in a void or a pile of rubbish. A few minutes of cutting can burn down a building if the area wasn't cleared and watched. That's why hot works is controlled by a permit and a fire watch, it's not red tape, it's because this is genuinely how fires start.
Spoken script for the supervisor. Read or paraphrase, in order.
Welding and brazing obviously, but also disc cutting and grinding, blow torches, soldering, hot air guns and bitumen boilers, anything throwing sparks or making a flame or serious heat. If you're about to make sparks or fire, it's hot works and these rules apply. People forget that grinding and disc cutting count, but they throw out a shower of hot sparks, so they're firmly in.
Most sites run a hot work permit, a permit to work, and it's not a box-ticking exercise. It forces you and the supervisor to check the area, set the controls, agree a fire watch and put a time limit on the job. No permit, no hot works. If there isn't a system in place, come and see me before you strike an arc or pull a trigger, we sort it first.
Get combustibles well away before you start, rubbish, timber, fuel, gas bottles, packaging, anything that'll catch, and keep a good clear zone around and below the work. Whatever you can't move, cover it with fire blankets or screens. And remember sparks fall and roll, so think hard about what's underneath you and behind the wall, not just what's in front of you.
Heat travels through metal and through walls, and sparks find gaps. Check the far side of any partition or wall you're cutting or welding on, and watch for voids, ducts and cavities where a spark can drop in and smoulder out of sight. A lot of the serious fires start in a void or a roof space that nobody thought to check, hours after the work was done.
Get the correct fire extinguisher, or more than one, within arm's reach before you start, not sat in the van. Know which type for what, same as we covered in the extinguisher talk. If a small fire starts, you want to kill it in the first few seconds, and that only works if the means to put it out is right there beside you, not a walk away.
Someone watches during the work, and this is the bit people get wrong, the watch carries on for at least an hour after you finish, because smouldering material can take that long to flare up into a fire. On higher-risk jobs the permit may want longer or repeat checks. Don't sign the permit off and walk away the second the grinder goes quiet, that's when half these fires take hold.
Secure cylinders upright, check the hoses and that flashback arrestors are fitted, and turn the gas off at the cylinder when you're done, not just at the torch. Store and move them properly, they're a serious hazard on their own. And welding and cutting fume is harmful, some of it causes cancer, so ventilate, use extraction and wear the right mask, hot works isn't only about the fire risk.
What the supervisor should be actively spotting on walk-arounds.
Ask one or two of these at the end. Confirms attention more than a silent nod.
A toolbox talk is generic by design. It works on every site. Your RAMS isn't. Briefkit writes a site-specific RAMS for your actual job: the hazards, sequence, PPE, competencies and emergency arrangements that apply to this work, at this address, by this team. £30 per document.
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