SWP - Workplace Inspection

Planning, walking, rating, recording and following up a workplace inspection: the monthly station inspection by the station officer with a member, the joint occupational health and safety committee’s inspection, the annual full inspection by the health and safety officer with facilities, and the inspection after a renovation, a new occupancy or a serious event. It applies to every workplace the department uses: career and volunteer stations, shops, training grounds, offices and shared or leased premises. Equipment inspections (apparatus, SCBA, PPE, ladders, rope, meters) stay with their own programs; this procedure checks that they happened and that their defects reached the register. Basis: Workplace Inspections Program sections 5.1 to 5.8; the health and safety standard’s facility inspection duties and sample checklists (NFPA 1550, 2024, ch. 4, ch. 12 and Annex K); the hazard identification method (CSA Z1002:12); the accreditation indicators on hazard reporting and documented risk reduction (CPSE, 2019, criteria 11A.2 and 11A.3); and the applicable law’s requirements for regular inspections and for the committee’s part in them (J04 Hazard Assessment and Workplace Inspections; J05 Joint Committee and Health and Safety Representative). (S1)

• To the inspectors: falls from towers, roofs, mezzanines, ladders and into pits; apparatus moving in the bay; energized equipment; confined spaces such as pits, tanks and cisterns; contaminated gear rooms and decon areas; chemicals; hot surfaces.
• To the program: an inspection done as a box-ticking exercise, a finding that never reaches the register, a member who reported a hazard and never heard back, and a crew that learns that reporting gets someone in trouble.

The PPE above; the right form (Form - Workplace Inspection Checklist (Station) for the monthly walk, Form - Station Safety Inspection Checklist (Full) for the annual full inspection, the committee report format in Workplace Inspections Program toolkit T3); the last three inspection forms and the open register items for the workplace; a camera or phone; out-of-service tags, barricade tape and hazard report forms; a tape measure for exit widths and clearances.

1. Confirm the inspection type and date from Annual Inspection and Review Schedule. Monthly inspections are done by the 15th of the month; a missed month is itself a register item owned by the district chief.
2. Read the last three inspection forms and the open register items for the workplace. Note which deficiencies were actioned and which were not. Committee inspectors always do this before they visit.
3. Tell the crew when the walk will happen and invite them to bring anything that bothers them. A call takes priority; the walk resumes after it.
4. Pre-walk check: PPE on; form, camera, tags, tape and hazard report forms in hand; the inspector knows where the confined spaces, pits and fall hazards are and does not enter or climb them.

5. Walk every area in the order on the form. Record any area not covered and the date it will be.
6. Look, ask and test where it is safe to: press the emergency lighting test, operate a bay door’s safety reverse, open a cabinet, read a tag, watch the exhaust hose go on at a start. Ask the member on duty in each area what gets in the way.
7. Mark each line OK, deficient or not applicable. Note and photograph each deficiency. Record conditions, never names.
8. Decision point: could this hurt someone before it can be fixed? Give each deficiency a priority on the department’s one scale, the same scale the Corrective Action Register uses: P1 (Imminent), P2 (Serious), P3 (Moderate) or P4 (Improvement). The priority sets the interim control and the dates:

9. P1 items: put an interim control in place before leaving the area (tag out, barricade, stop the use, isolate), and tell the district chief and the health and safety officer before the team leaves the station.
10. Fix on the spot whatever can be fixed safely within the team’s authority (clear an exit, close a cabinet, replace a missing sign) and record it as fixed.

11. Spend five minutes with whoever is on duty, or at the training night, using the crew questions on the form. Record what was said by role.
12. Complete the deficiency table: priority, action, owner by role, due date.
13. Sign the form and enter it in {{Records system}}; post a short summary on the station safety board.

14. Every deficiency goes into the Corrective Action Register within five working days, with work orders raised where facilities or fleet own the fix.
15. Anyone who raised a hazard during the walk hears back within five working days: what was found, what will happen, who owns it and by when.
16. Closure is verified by someone other than the person who did the fix: a re-inspection, a photograph or a certificate, initialled in the register.
17. An item that recurs at the same workplace within 12 months of closure goes to the program team for a learning-team look at the work as it is really done, because the fix did not hold.

18. Hold an open session with the crew to explain what the committee does and to take concerns.
19. Write the report in the program’s format: background (including the checklist completion rate and whether past items were actioned), observations as issue, details and the action required with who raises the work order or escalates, recommendations (formal ones flagged for the statutory route), and photographs. Send it to the station officer, the program manager, the health and safety officer and the next committee meeting.

20. Use the full checklist and add the building systems, the environmental register (radon, asbestos, legionella), the exhaust capture verification report, an observed lockout on at least one machine, and the fire safety records.
21. Compare this year’s findings with last year’s and say whether the workplace is getting better; the report goes to the program manager, the station officer, the committee and the management review.

• Imminent danger found: evacuate the area or the station if needed, isolate the hazard, call the district chief and the health and safety officer, and for gas or electrical hazards the utility or a licensed contractor.
• Inspector injured: first aid, EMS, injury report before the end of the shift.
• A finding that suggests a serious event nearly happened: report it on Form - Near-Miss and Good-Catch Report as well as in the register, so the learning system can triage it (Incident Investigation and Learning Program).

Completed forms and committee reports; register entries with priorities, owners and due dates; replies to reporters with dates; the monthly inspection summary to the committee and the operations meeting (Workplace Inspections Program toolkit T4); completion tracking by workplace. Inspection records are kept five years, or longer where the applicable law requires (J09 Records Retention), and are available to the committee (05 Document Control and Records).

Station officers learn this procedure on appointment and refresh every three years; committee members learn it with their committee training; the health and safety officer keeps facility inspection competence current; all members learn how to report a hazard and what reply to expect. The Facilities and Stations team reviews this procedure every year, using the completion rate, the reply times and the repeat findings, and starts any change with a learning-team session with station officers from career and volunteer stations. Sign-off: the program manager. Consulted: the JOHSC.

• Program: Workplace Inspections Program sections 5.1 to 5.8; toolkit T1 to T5.
• Policy: Policy - Facilities.
• Forms: Form - Workplace Inspection Checklist (Station); Form - Station Safety Inspection Checklist (Full); Form - Hazard Report.
• Governance and audit: 02 JOHSC Integration; Corrective Action Register; Checklist - Monitoring, Inspection and Indicators; Checklist - Facilities and Station Safety.

This chapter relies on the following legal requirements, which differ by province and territory. Check your jurisdiction’s section on each topic page before adopting it.