Industrial Fire Prevention

From Combustible Dust Explosions and Fires-ATEX blog and our friend John Astad at combustible Dust Policy Institute  Friday, April 12, 2013 Fact Sheet: 2011 Combustible Dust Related Incidents, NFIRS Analysis Fact Sheet: 2011 Combustible Dust Related Incidents, NFIRS Analysis from Combustible Dust Policy Institute A Combustible Dust Policy Institute (CDPI) preliminary analysis of 2011 National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) incident data provided by the National Fire Data Center of the U.S. Fire Administration indicated over 500 combustible dust related incidents in manufacturing facilities where dust was the item first ignited. Near misses include incidents that did not result in any harm to personnel, the facility, process, or product. Analysis did not include the grain sector or coal-fired energy plants. Additionally, the CDPI analysis does not include many incidents that were not reported by fire departments to the National Fire Data Cen...

Combustible Dust: From Sparks to Fires to Explosions - Identifying Precursors to Catastrophic Events  From OHS-- Occupational Health and Safety Since the 2009 introduction of OSHA’s proposed combustible dust rulemaking following the 2008 Imperial Sugar Refinery catastrophic dust explosion, a regulation has not been finalized. In the interim, Congress has acted with the February 2013 reintroduction of a proposed combustible dust bill, “Worker Protection Against Combustible Dust Explosions and Fires Act (H.R. 691),” which directs OSHA to immediately publish an interim combustible dust regulation. A problem arises in both the proposed OSHA combustible dust rulemaking process and reintroduced combustible dust bill in that neither acknowledges the multitude of “near miss” combustible dust related fires, precursors to catastrophic dust explosions and flash fires. In 2013 a preliminary analysis by the Combustible Dust Policy Institute (CDPI) of National Fire Incident Rep...

NFPA :: Research :: Statistical reports :: Occupancies :: Fires in U.S. Industrial and Manufacturing Facilities Fires in U.S. Industrial and Manufacturing Facilities         Report:  NFPA's "Fires in U.S. Industrial and Manufacturing Facilities" Author:   Ben Evarts Issued:  April 2012  An overview of industrial and manufacturing property fires, including trend tables, causes, time of day, day of week, month of year, and area of origin.  Abstract During 2006-2010, an estimated 42,800 fires in or at industrial or manufacturing properties (including utility, defense, agriculture, and mining) were reported to U.S. fire departments per year, with associated annual losses of 22 civilian deaths, 300 civilian injuries, and $951 million in direct property damage.   Seventy percent of these fires occurred outside or in unclassified locations, 20% occurred in structures and 9% in vehicles.   Two-thirds (66%) of the comb...

Better Identification of Fire Hazards Needed -- Occupational Health & Safety In this article from the OSHA On-line and OHS Occupation Health & Safety site, John Astad of the Combustible Dust Policy Institute discusses that NFIRS 5.0 incident reporting system. John has done excellent research on NFIRS the National Fire Incident Reporting System. This article explains why we need to improve the reporting framework for NFIRS, and how that will help all stakeholders including safety professionals, firemen and local code enforcement better understand the causes of and prevention of industrial process fires and explosions. Better Identification of Fire Hazards Needed Stakeholders seeking control measures to minimize the probability and severity of combustible dust incidents should work more closely with the fire service. By John Astad Jan 01, 2011 Combustible dust-related fires occur with alarming regularity throughout the manufacturing, non-manufacturing, and...