Industrial Fire Prevention

From our friends at: Donaldson Overview Help Prevent and Protect Against Combustible Dust In manufacturing facilities that generate or handle dust, it’s an important responsibility to manage combustion risks. When a combustible dust encounters an ignition source, there is the potential for a fire or explosion. It’s essential to have a comprehensive plan to manage and mitigate that potential risk. Many operations are subject to the requirements of NFPA Standard 652: Fundamentals of Combustible Dust, which has a dust hazard analysis (DHA) requirement due by September 7, 2020. A well-designed, maintained, and operated dust collection system is an integral part of your effort to comply with this and other standards and regulations. Donaldson can assist you in developing a strategy for the specific needs of your facility.   Strategy Here are some basic steps to get started on a mitigation plan: 1. Know your standards and codes.  Research the local, state, and federal mand...

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...

OSHA Cracking Down on Repeat Violators Category: Enforcement and Inspection Acting OSHA administrator Jordan Barab says that OSHA is gearing up to go after employers that are not meeting their obligations under the OSH Act. A new enhanced enforcement program is in the works. http://safetydailyadvisor.blr.com/

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...