Industrial Fire Prevention

From Powder/Bulk Solids OSHA, NFPA to Progress on Combustible Dust Standards June 28, 2016 2016 could be a major year for combustible dust standards. In June, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) starts its first revision cycle of NFPA 652, the organization’s newly introduced combustible dust standard for general industry. Later this fall, the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is preparing to hold a panel examining impacts of a proposed OSHA combustible dust standard on small businesses – the first major event in its combustible dust rulemaking process to be scheduled since 2010. This year, the level of interest and the character of comments in the NFPA’s 652 revision process and OSHA’s proposed panel could significantly shape discussions on - and development of - both entities’ combustible dust activities in 2017 and beyond. To read  Powder & Bulk Solids ' exlusive feature on co...

An old article, but well worth reading...   From Occupational Hazards , November 1996, page 44 How to Prevent Industrial Fires Use a three-phase accident investigation process to identify basic causes and take corrective action. Nov 1, 1996 EHS Today Staff Fires and explosions needlessly kill and injure employees and damage billions of dollars worth of property and goods every year. Here are steps you can take to keep your business from going up in smoke. William Fries admits he was shocked. Fries, director, property services, Loss Prevention Department, Liberty Mutual Group, thought he had seen and heard it all during his time with the company, but this was a new one. During a routine inspection, he asked a safety director at a pulp and paper mill if it had a frequency problem with fires. He was relieved to hear that the company had never had a big fire. His happiness was short-lived as the safety director went on to exp...

For your viewing pleasure: Archived Webinars - DEKRA Insight An excellent webinar on the new NFPA 652 Standard: NFPA 652 - Dust Hazard Analysis Join DEKRA Insight’s David Kaelin for an insightful look into NFPA 652. This webinar will provide management and supervisors with the insight necessary to complete a dust hazard analysis and identify those areas within the equipment, operations, processes, and activities that could lead to dust explosions. View the webinar - presented by David Kaelin Auditing: The Importance of Being Effective and Efficient with Your Audit Management This webinar discusses the impact effective audit management has on safety functioning. We share practical tools and knowledge that you can apply in your organization. View the webinar Requirements for a Robust Basis of Safety This webinar outlines the generic procedure to ensure that safety measures are reliably specified and that adequate process safety data is available on which the...

From ACS Blog: Everything you need to know about NFPA 652 Posted by on June 24, 2016 It’s finally here, the panacea of combustible dust control. We’re talking about  NFPA 652: Standard on the Fundamentals of Combustible Dust.  The new standard sets out to be the single, go-to source for handling combustible dusts, no matter what industry you’re in, or where you live in the world. The National Fire Protection Agency (NFPA) announced the standard’s release at the American Industrial Hygiene conference and exposition (AIHce) on May 25, 2016 after its approval on September 7, 2015. The NFPA published the new standard as an answer to a lack of understanding of what combustible dust hazards are, and to smooth out some inconsistent guidelines in their existing commodity-specific standards. The new standards apply to all logistics and facilities involved with handling or producing combustible dusts and combustible particulate solids. They give straightforward gu...

NFPA Journal - Credible Risk, March April 2015 NFPA Journal Official magazine of the National Fire Protection Association NFPA.org           Author(s): Guy Colonna. Published on March 2, 2015. PREPARING A NEW NFPA STANDARD requires a mixture of ingredients, some provided by the public and the technical committee, others provided by NFPA staff. The aim is that, in the end, we have developed a meaningful document that benefits the targeted occupancy or addresses a particular hazard. The path to completion can sometimes be unusual, as was the case with the new NFPA 652, Fundamentals of Combustible Dust , which is due to be issued this summer. To ensure that certain deadlines were met, NFPA’s editorial team resorted to humor to catch my attention. I love soccer, and was fortunate to spend time in Brazil last summer at the FIFA World Cup, where I followed the progress...

From Powder/Bulk Solids Purdue Offers Courses on Dust Explosion Prevention Purdue University Extension is offering three workshops this summer on the prevention of grain dust combustion and explosions for workers at grain handling facilities. Funded by a grant from the US Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the sessions will focus on handling and unloading grain, engineering controls, and industrial hazards. Participants will also observe a demonstration of a grain dust explosion. Those who successfully complete the workshops are awarded a certificate. "On average, there are 10 grain dust explosions every year in the United States, causing damage, injury, and death," said Kingsley Ambrose, assistant professor in Purdue's department of agricultural and biological engineering. "Our goal is to raise awareness of the perils of grain dust explosion and reduce th...

US combustible dust standard now in place 31 May 2016 According to OHS Online, the US National Fire Protection Association’s new combustible dust standard, NFPA 652, Standard on the Fundamentals of Combustible Dust, is now in effect. It is the latest in a series of NFPA standards that apply to combustible dusts after 61, 484, 654, 655, and 664, and includes the important new requirement of dust hazard analysis.   This was announced at the American Industrial Hygiene Conference & Exposition (AIHce) 2016 event in Baltimore, OHS Online reported.  Susan Berhad, the NFPA staff liaison for the combustible dust project, made the announcement during a May 25 presentation on the standard at the event. The 652 standard sets out three fundamental principles: controlling the fuel, controlling the ignition sources, and limiting the spread of any combustion event. Redesigning facilities is not retroactive under the standard, Berhad said. But management of chan...