Industrial Fire Prevention

From ISHN Industrial Safety and Hygiene News: Avoid dust-ups with OSHA over NFPA 652 Compliance March 22, 2021 Megan E. Baroni , Christopher Y. Eddy , Peter Knight , and Jonathan H. Schaefer KEYWORDS Combustible dust / dust protection / hazards Order Reprints For more than a decade, OSHA has placed an emphasis on combustible dust hazards, which have resulted in numerous deadly incidents over the years. While no OSHA standard directly addresses combustible dust, this has not hindered OSHA enforcement. Instead, OSHA has relied on the General Duty Clause and reference to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards when citing employers for combustible dust hazards.   What is combustible dust? OSHA defines combustible dust as “a combustible particulate solid that presents a fire or deflagration hazard...

By Rich Christianson at woodworkingnetwork.com Pardon Your ComDust An OSHA -mandated combustible dust standard in likely a year or two away, but that doesn’t mean the federal safety agency isn’t already applying increased pressure on manufacturers to clean up their plants. As I witnessed firsthand yesterday at OSHA’s third in a series of Combustible Dust Stakeholder Meetings ( read report ), OSHA is intent on making a ComDust standard real. It’s a rule-making process that might not be happening if not for the Feb. 7, 2008 fatal explosion of Imperial Sugar’s plant in Port Wentworth, GA, that killed 14 and injured dozens of other workers. But happening it is. Ever since the Imperial Sugar tragedy, Congress has taken enhanced interest in safeguarding workers from ComDust hazards and OSHA inspectors have paid greater attention to dust accumulations in the workplace. The most recent example is OSHA’s announcement that it was fining H&H Woodworking of Yonkers, NY, $1...

Another good article from our friends at Farr on OSHA REQUIREMENTS and MANUFACTURERS RESPONSIBILITIES for COMBUSTIBLE DUST , DUST COLLECTORS and dust collection systems. The biggest misconception among manufacturers is that OSHA is just presenting them with a guideline, not with something they have to do. The fact is, OSHA is beefing up enforcement of safety measures on several fronts, and combustible dust has become one of the top priorities since the agency re-issued its National Emphasis Program (NEP) on this topic in March 2008. Under the OSHA NEP, manufacturers are required to follow applicable NFPA standards including the revamped NFPA 68 Standard on Explosion Protection by Deflagration Venting , which provides mandatory requirements for dust collection applications involving explosive dusts. Sometimes other safety standards such as Factory Mutual may be applied instead, but these are no less stringent than NFPA and all are treated as legal code by nearly every town ...

August 28th, 2009 by Dr. Saraf Green is “In”. But just because you have a green technology does not mean you have ZERO risks. Let me give you a couple of examples. Biofuel Industry... Dr. Saraf makes a very valid and important point in his blog post. It has been my experience that emerging technologies often lag in safety as the technology and process dangers develop. Our readers may note that biofuels are both liquid and solid forms. I can speak directly to the pellet Industry, and specifically to the wood pellet process as this growth industry is now experiencing critical mass with 100 pellet plants in N.America and an ever increasing number of incidents of fires and explosions. Fires and explosions in this industry are predominantly due to lack of awareness of the combustibility of the product and byproduct from these processes, as well as lack of properly designed process controls, dust collection, safety systems (such as adequate spark detection & extinguishment and explosion ...

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