Industrial Fire Prevention

Preventing Wood Dust in the Plant From our friend Jamison Scott, of Air Handling Systems Preventing Wood Dust in the Plant By Jamison Scott | 03/06/2013 12:26:00 PM     One of the most important things a woodworking facility can do is engage in housekeeping and fugitive dust control. If underlying surface colors are not readily discernible on your equipment, there could be a dust deflagration hazard. Do not ignore the wood dust. Clean it up, but do not blow it off with an air gun as that simply releases and stratifies the dust — use a vacuum to collect it. Then investigate to determine the source of the dust. For example, if the ductwork is not airtight, seal joints to prevent the release of dust. When inspecting the workplace for dust accumulations, consider all flat surfaces including rectangular-shaped ductwork, overhead beams, lighting fixtures and areas such as hung or suspended ceilings. The National F...

From our friends at Nilfisk, and The Industrial Vacuum Blog a good article on Grain Mills and Combustible Dust Housekeeping Grain Mills: Preventative Maintenance and Dust Control  Grain Mills: Preventative Maintenance and Dust Control (Part 1) January 11, 2013 Feed & Grain Every week, we see news about  grain mills with dust control and maintenance issues. Simply by the nature of their processes, grain mills have difficulty keeping a clean and safe environment. This series of blog posts will review solutions for general maintenance, oil spill response and combustible dust control. Part 1: General facility maintenance and employee safety go hand-in-hand. Providing a clean, sanitary environment means your employees are risk-free of job-related injury or infection. General maintenance in grain mills also addresses concerns like combustible dust and cross-contamination from allergens, bacteria and other hazards. These threats are heightened...

Relying on housekeeping as a first line of defense against explosion and fire is a false economy False security - relying on housekeeping as your first line of defense in dealing with combustible dust.  Great article by our friend Eric Anderson, as posted in the Combustible Dust Explosions and Fires blog .  Housekeeping is a secondary strategy to managing combustible dust, not a primary method of preventing dust fires and explosions. Why going cheap on the dust collection and control system is short sighted... We all know that our cars and trucks have air and oil filters to catch dust to avoid abrasive wear of the engine. We have seen news articles about how airborne dust is not good for jet engines - like when that Icelandic volcano erupted in 2010, or the Argentinean eruption in 2011. So, why do so many industrial operations let their dust collection systems get plugged up and fail to perform? Assuming that they bother to install adequate dust contro...