Industrial Fire Prevention

Fire Prevention Plans: Don't Get Burned There are some 100,000 workplace fires every year in the United States, resulting in losses in the billions of dollars. And the human toll is high as well. The National Safety Council estimates that fires and burns account for 3 percent of all occupational fatalities.

OSHA's instructions for responding to a significant event Hi All...found this while doing some research for an article. Not sure if it's been updated since (1991), but interesting stuff. Rachel Brutosky Public Relations Coordinator at Nilfisk-Advance America. http://tinyurl.com/nm8a7g

OSHA Focuses on Combustible Dust Hazards in AL, FL, GA, and MS-GRAINNET News - Add comment Tags: OSHA Region IV OSHA Dust NEP inspection enforcement shared by John Astad 2009-06-21 12:59:20

OSHA Cleaning up Dust Hazards at Florida Companies - First Coast News

OSHA Cleaning up Dust Hazards at Florida Companies - First Coast News

OSHA focuses on combustible dust hazards at Georgia sites http://tinyurl.com/nblp6k

Combustible dust hazards at Alabama companies NBC13com Alabama companies are being found in violation of workplace safety and health codes.

Is Your Workplace Ready for a Combustible Dust Explosion? Safety Daily Advisor - BLR http://tinyurl.com/mmhfbr via www.diigo.com/~comdust

Take More Action to Prevent Dust Explosions One year after 14 workers died in an explosion at Imperial Sugar, combustible dust fires and explosions continue to occur at U.S. businesses. OSHA has not begun rulemaking on a comprehensive combustible dust standard, as recommended by the Chemical Safety Board in 2006. More needs to be done, according to CSB Chairman John Bresland. That's the safety message for February 4, 2009.

IT ONLY TAKES A MILLISECOND The explosion at the ConAgra Foods plant in Garner, NC, shows again the vulnerability of operations to catastrophic events and their highly undesirable consequences. Ensure that your operations not only pursue workplace safety excellence but also properly address process related safety excellence...

"lack of transparency in explosion reporting where 2 plant workers were killed: http://tinyurl.com/lvr8kn

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfiXvIM5gD0

PSM Oriented Towards Dust Hazards? Posted by John Astad on May 29, 2009 at 10:23pm Request Sent! View John Astad's blog A process safety management (PSM) oriented program that addresses combustible dust hazards in the manufacturing, non-manufacturing, and utility sectors needs to be implemented as it is in the chemical and refinery sectors. The main problem, is a disconnect concerning wood, food, paper, textiles, etc. process streams as not being considered like the 136 highly hazardous chemicals (HHC ) as outlined in OSHA's Process Safety Management regulation (29 CFR 1910.119).OSHA National Emphasis Programs (NEP)Last year, the OSHA Combustible Dust National Emphasis Program (NEP) became effective four months after the Petroleum Refinery Process Safety Management (PSM) National Emphasi... There is a vast difference in the two OSHA NEP's with the goal of protecting the nations workforce and outlying communities from the harmful effects of industrial fires, explosions, ...

OSHA Combustible Dusts Presentation: OSHA Combustible dusts View more OpenOffice presentations from vtsiri .

V I E W P O I N T Using Leading Indicators to Improve Your Safety Program By Terrie S. Norris, CSP, ARM, CPSI Terrie S. Norris is the risk control manager for Bickmore Risk Services & Consulting. How are you measuring the success of your safety program? Many entities, whether private or public, use one or more of the following: OSHA incident rate, severity rates, claims per $100 in payroll, number of fatalities, average cost per claim, and/or experience modification. These are all great trailing indicators. The problem is that they are measures of failure. A loss must occur before a value can be established. An analysis of the losses may provide a focus for the entity’s safety and health or its liability programs, but it does not drive improvement. A better equation for the improvement of safety, health, and liability performance is focused attention on leading indicators plus measured performance. Leading indicators are those that focus attention on activities that can contribute ...

Collecting and Testing Dust Knowing dust characteristics facilitates ventilation equipment selection By Lee Morgan, Farr APC In 1998, both the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) issued more stringent requirements relating to the use of respirators in plants. Though respirators are critical to shielding workers from ambient dust and fumes, they are not the total answer. The new OSHA standard (29 CFR 1910.134) states that employers are expected to use engineering controls to protect workers from air contaminants and not rely on respirators alone. While respirators do a good job of protecting workers' lungs, they do nothing to safeguard machinery and process areas from contamination that may result in costly equipment failure, constant rework, or general cleaning nuisances. The equipment currently used in fabricating plants has reached a new level of sophistication. High-definition plasma cutters, ...

"Dont just do safety - promote it and progress it, so that at the end of your career the safety field is better and more effective than when you started." James Ramsey - Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Clarifies Dust Explosion Venting Requirements for California Jupiter, FL (OPENPRESS) June 9, 2009 -- Recent projects in California uncovered a concern that may be unique to that state. Since similar concerns had been raised in previous California projects international dust explosion protection leader, CV Technology was motivated to clarify dust explosion requirements specific to the state of California.During a recent risk analysis for dust explosion hazards at one of the largest food processing plants in California, several vessels that handle combustible dusts were found to be unprotected. The client required verification of compliance with applicable NFPA Standards, and if shortfalls were found, the client required recommendations for rectification. In this particular facility all of the vessels requiring protection were indoors and it would be quite straight forward to protect them using explosion vents ducted to the outside. Vessels needing protection in facilities such as this i...

Safety Forecast for the 21st Century May 24th, 2009 by Dr. Saraf The 20th century was a time of great technological change that forever transformed how we live and work – changes that necessitated the birth and development of the field of Process Safety Management. The early years saw the evolution of mechanization into assembly lines and true industrialization. Lack of access to South American nitrate during World War I, led to the creation of the synthetic chemical industry. World War II fostered increased industrial growth and sophistication. By the 1960s, we were building computers and beginning our race to the moon. Industries grew becoming increasingly sophisticated and reliant on automated systems. The 1970s brought the creation of the US EPA and OSHA. The 1980s witnessed one of the greatest tragedies in the last century – an estimated 4,000 people died in the 1984 Bhopal accident. Since then, the process safety community has evolved in its approaches and methodologies to better...

Footprints to Disaster-Combustible Dust posted by messinabout@earthlink.net (John Astad) at Combustible Dust Explosions and Fires-ATEX - 4 hours ago Justin Clift, Industrial Market Specialist at Hazard Control Technologiesshares with readers at the Industrial Fire Journal an educational article in understanding how to assess, evaluate, and control comb...

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...

Tuesday, March 3, 2009 2008 Dust Explosions and Fires Overview The Combustible Dust Policy Institute found through researching media accounts in 2008 that over 150+ combustible dust related fires and explosions occurred in the manufacturing, non-manufacturing and utility sectors in the United States. Over 30% of these incidents are repeats of prior fires and explosions that fire departments are responding to. Subsequently, these reoccurring incidents mostly go unnoticed by OSHA, unless there are at least three injuries or one fatality. The current OSHA Combustible Dust National Emphasis Program (NEP) directive does not address the majority of national industries (NAICS) where incidents are frequently occurring. For example, over 60% of incidents in 2008 occurred in national industries not listed in Appendix D-1 and D-2 of the NEP. Too much emphasis and resources is being directed toward the OSHA Dust NEP, when the majority of incidents are occurring in national industries not reference...

ASSE - Fire Protection and Prevention - Combustible Dust Mitigation ASSE Webinar - Fire Protection and Prevention View more OpenOffice presentations from ASSE1911 .