Industrial Fire Prevention

A textbook example of a flash fire, explosion, secondary explosion, and criminal negligence from the Sarnia Observer. "the amount of dust in the air made it impossible to see from one end of the shop to the other." Trial continues Monday Fireball set off explosion in Veolia shop By Neil Bowen , Sarnia Observer Wednesday, July 12, 2017 6:47:10 EDT PM  Sarnia court A fireball from an explosion in a dust collector set off another explosion inside a Sarnia shop during a 2014 incident that killed one worker and injured others. Veolia Environmental Services and a company manager, Anthony Lavoratore, were charged with criminal negligence following the Oct. 25, 2014 fire and explosion that killed 37-year-old Jason Miller. Miller was one of six men injured. He died days later in hospital. Charges were laid in 2015 and the trial began du...

From Woodworking Network Resolute fined after worker burned in dust explosion on wood biomass boiler By Karl D. Forth February 04, 2016 | 4:07 pm EST Photo by HGC Engineering, www.acoustical-consultants.com FORT FRANCES, Ontario - Lumber firm Resolute Forest Products Canada Inc., owner of an idled paper mill, pleaded guilty and has been fined $150,000 after a worker was burned following an explosion of wood dust. The Ontario Ministry of Labour says the paper mill was idled in 2014 but its bio mass boiler was still in operation to provide heat for the mill through the winter. It was expected that the boiler would be idled after the winter when heating was no longer required. The boiler was capable of running on either natural gas or bio mass. In 2008 an engineering assessment of the conveyor system for the boiler concluded that the system did not present a dust explosion hazard, owing to the particle size and moisture content of the fuel being used as b...

Three injured in Burns Lake wood pellet mill explosion (updated) By TIFFANY CRAWFORD and ROB SHAW, VANCOUVER SUN October 9, 2014     One man suffered third-degree burns and two other employees were injured in an explosion at a wood pellet plant in Burns Lake on Thursday. Leroy Reitsma, president of Pinnacle Renewable Energy plant said a "fire-related incident" happened at the Burns Lake mill, located on Highway 16 east of Burns Lake, at around 8 a.m. Photograph by: Pinnacle Renewable Energy, ... One man suffered third-degree burns and two other employees were injured in an explosion at a wood pellet plant in Burns Lake on Thursday. Leroy Reitsma, president of the Pinnacle Renewable Energy plant said a “fire-related incident” happened at the Burns Lake mill, located on Highway 16 east of Burns Lake, at about 8 a.m. He said the fire broke out inside of some equipment used to dry wood fibre and it caused an explosion. Pinna...

From our friends at BS&B and Baghouse.com: http://www.baghouse.com/2013/10/15/introduction-to-combustible-dust-explosions-common-to-baghouses/ Introduction to Combustible Dust Explosions Common to Baghouses Guest Post By Bevin Sequeira BS&B Safety Systems (Asia Pacific) Pte Ltd.  Introduction to Dust Explosions A Dust Explosion is the fast combustion of dust particles suspended in the air in an enclosed location. Coal dust explosions are a frequent hazard in underground coal mines, but dust explosions can occur where any powdered combustible material is present in an enclosed atmosphere or, in general, in high enough concentrations of dispersed combustible particles in atmosphere. Dust explosion at West Pharmaceutical Services, North Carolina took the lives of 6 people in 2003. Dust explosions can lead to loss of life, injury, damage property and environmental damage as well as consequential damage such as business...

Help reduce combustible dust explosion From Northern Safety and Industrial, northernsafety.com: Help reduce combustible dust explosions Combustible materials can burn quickly. When in dust form, some can explode when suspended in the air in certain concentrations and under the right circumstances. A wide variety of materials can be explosive in dust form. Some of these materials include tobacco, plastics, wood, paper, pulp, rubber, furniture, textiles, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, dyes, coal, metals, fossil fuels, and food such as sugar, spice, starch, flour, or feed. The Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) advises employers to protect workers by identifying any combustible dusts in the workplace and developing plans and procedures to help prevent explosions. Facilities assessing the potential for dust explosions may find the following possible hazards: •   Materials that are explosive when in dust...