Industrial Fire Prevention

From our friends at: Canadian Centre for Occupational Health  and Safety https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/chemicals/combustible_dust.html Combustible Dust What is a combustible dust? Essentially, a combustible dust is any fine material that has the ability to catch fire and explode when mixed with air. Combustible dusts can be from: most solid organic materials (such as sugar, flour, grain, wood, etc. ) many metals, and some nonmetallic inorganic materials. Some of these materials are not "normally" combustible, but they can burn or explode if the particles are the right size and in the right concentration. Therefore any activity that creates dust should be investigated to see if there is a risk of that dust being combustible. Dust can collect on surfaces such as rafters, roofs, suspended ceilings, ducts, crevices, dust collectors, and other equipment. When the dust is disturbed and under certain circumstances, there is the potential for a serious explosion to occur. The build...

OSHA Issues Guidance on Combustible Dust Hazards Under New HazCom Rule From Bloomberg BNA By Robert Iafolla Jan. 2 — When chemical manufacturers and importers lack direct experience with the combustible dust hazards of products they're shipping, they should use laboratory testing, published test results or particle size to classify them under the new hazard communication standard, according to an Occupational Safety and Health Administration memo released Dec. 31. Manufacturers and importers are responsible for considering the combustible dust hazards of the chemical in the form they're shipped as well as those that might stem from normal use and foreseeable emergencies, OSHA said in its memo. OSHA's standard interpretation memo is designed to guide agency inspectors in deciding whether products are classified properly for combustible dust hazards. The guidance is for inspections of manufacturers and importers, typically from referrals r...

Stakeholder and AHJ Collaboration A few days ago, I posted the following blog titled COMBUSTIBLE WOOD FLOUR - "Factory fire causes $350000 damage" This blog post talked about a combustible dust fire that happened in a facility creating wood flour.  From the perspective of someone who is in these plants on a weekly basis, and sees the potential safety issues every day, this was an unusually well written and detailed article. One important thing to note about this news story, is the collaboration between the stakeholders - the company personnel, and the AHJ - Authority Having Jurisdiction, as well as the news media.  I was impressed by the detail in the story, and the cooperation between stakeholders. Often when I read a story this detailed I can visualize exactly what happened at this plant, because I have seen the same thing many times.  Although more typically, most media accounts do not contain enough detail or research to be able to accurately tell wh...

Good Housekeeping – Minimize Accumulation of Combustible Dust Cleanliness in the workplace may be subjective among your employees. OSHA requires good housekeeping, as 29 CFR 1910.22 indicates, “All places of employment, passages, store rooms and service rooms shall be kept clean, orderly, and in a sanitary condition.” However, if your organization contains combustible dust hazards, one of the best methods to avoid the potential for a combustible dust explosion is to enforce good housekeeping rules. This is not subjective. NFPA 654 warns that a dust layer >1/32 of an inch accumulated on surface areas of at least 5 percent of a room’s floor area presents a significant explosion hazard. The Chemical Safety Board found that the West Pharmaceutical explosion in Kinston, NC in 2003 was caused by dust accumulations primarily under ¼ inch.Materials that may form combustible dust include metals (such as aluminum and magnesium), wood, coal, plastics, biosolids, sugar, paper, soap, dried blo...