Hi all, if a (small) fire starts on site - record as an accident or a near miss? Probably an accident?

Near Miss

Accident is something happening unexpectedly and unintentionally resulting in injury or damage without apparent or deliberate cause.

Fires will always have an apparent and/or deliberate cause.

I'd call it in an accident (an unplanned event that caused harm, damage or loss).

Whether or not there is an identifiable cause is not usually a criterion for something being classified as an accident - the whole point of accident investigation is to find out the causes of accidents.

Hi JHF - does it actually matter how you classify it?

Why not think of it as an opportunity to investigate and look for ways of improving?

Some software systems I've used give fire its own category.

You will need to do what fits your software.  If  the accident category leads to a question about damage or loss (not just about injury), then that's where you will need to record the loss of product.

If on the other hand it requires you to state what injury happened, then you will need to enter it as a near miss (on the basis that it could have caused injury but didn't).

In my humble opinion a fire is a FIRE and should be recorded as such.

Why not introduce an Incident Reporting Book for recording such as this.

Not all fires are Accidents or Malicious ignition.  There are Other causes such as lightning strikes (Act of God) and sunlight shining on glass in a field of dry hay.

Originally Posted by: JHF

The fire caused damage and "loss," were not sure at this stage what caused it.

But there will be a cause.

discarded cigarette end, dumped glass bottle, embers blowing through from a neighbours bonfire, "act of god", frayed electrical cabling, overloaded circuit, "spontaneous" combustion from a reaction or microbiological overheating, disgruntled (ex) employee, vape battery, laptop/e-bike/e-scooter battery & charger, wayward fire work, covered electrical heater, hot works.........

If a piece of software dictates your H&S policy, procedures and incident data capturing, then perhaps you have the wrong software ???????

several of the larger multi-national company's I've worked with will only classify a Near Miss if there is no injury and no damage

A fire would create damage.

I'm in the 'Incident' camp on this one as Accident's would generally have some system/procedural/human failing and are considered 'Preventable' by many organisations, (Shell's ethos is that all accidents are preventable)

I did call it an accident and why? Going by the definition accident is an undesired event that results in harm to people, damage to property, or loss to process. while near miss an unplanned, unwanted event that had the potential to lead to injury, damage or loss (but did not, in fact, do so). so the result of fire should determine if it its an accident of near miss besides if fire occurs or starts but hardly can a fire start without causing  at least damages or more ,although the level of damages may depend on the time of the fire before its been put to a stop. and so far damage occur it cant be categorise as near miss. Also investigations we help in getting fact and accurate data which will help to reach a decision.

Please clarify the difference between undesired and unwanted as your definitions seem to infer these as unique and distinguishable.