Industrial Fire Prevention

From Powder/Bulk Solids NFPA Introduces NFPA 652 Combustible Dust Standard July 27, 2015 Every year, destructive and deadly dust-related fires and explosions affect a wide range of industries around the world. In the United States alone, 50 combustible dust accidents occurred between 2008 and 2012. To manage the dust-related fire, flash fire, and explosion hazards in industries that use dust collection and handling equipment, or have processes that may generate combustible dust, the  National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) introduces the first-time NFPA 652: Standard on the Fundamentals of Combustible Dust. This important new Standard serves a wide variety of industries including chemical, wood  processing, metals, and agricultural. In addition to providing new general requirements for managing combustible dust fire and explosion hazards, NFPA 652 directs users to NFPA's appropriate industry- or commodity-specific standards, such as NFPA 61: Prevent...

From Powder/Bulk Solids ACC Publishes 2015 Guide to Chemical Industry The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has issued its 2015 edition of the Guide to the Business of Chemistry, a detailed economic profile of the chemistry industry and its contributions to the U.S. and world economies. American chemistry is the global leader in production, providing over fifteen percent of the world’s chemicals and representing 14 percent of all U.S. exports. It is also one of America’s largest manufacturing industries, an $801 billion enterprise providing 804,000 high-paying jobs. For every one chemistry industry job, 6.3 others are generated in other sectors of the economy, including construction, transportation, and agriculture, totaling nearly six million chemistry-dependent jobs. “The business of chemistry is the building block for everything around us,” said the publication’s lead author, ACC chief economist Kevin Swift. “Supporting nearly 25 percent of the U.S. GDP, the b...

From The National Law Review OSHA Clarifies Enforcement Guidance on Combustible Dust posted on: Wednesday, June 10, 2015 The Occupational Safety and Health Administration , responding to a request of the National Forest and Paper Association , has updated its compliance guidance on how inspectors are to evaluate accumulated levels of low bulk-density combustible dusts for enforcement purposes. The guidance  was released by OSHA on May 22. The Association asked OSHA to explain to the agency’s inspectors that they should consider the unique characteristics of a dust ‒ such as its bulk density ‒ instead of basing assessments on whether dust accumulation simply surpasses 1/32 of an inch (about the diameter of a paper clip), an OSHA spokesperson told Bloomberg BNA. OSHA’s compliance guidance for its seven-year-old National Emphasis Program (NEP) for combustible dust references 1/32-inch dust accumulation levels. However, OSHA made clear in the latest g...

From our friends at Baghouse.com How to Avoid Undersizing a Baghouse Dust Collection System Dust collector OEMs constantly try to come in with bids lower than competitors. In an attempt to do so, some baghouse manufacturers offer undersized systems. This article discusses what customers can do to avoid accepting a bid for an inadequately-sized baghouse dust collection system. By Dominick DalSanto Dust Collection Expert & Sales Director Baghouse.com ”I’m sorry, but the other supplier came in lower than you. We went with their proposal over yours.” I think there are few things I hate hearing more than those words in my position in baghouse sales. I can respect a client who has found a better deal on a comparable system. But I am upset when I hear that my competition came in with a bid lower than mine by recommending a grossly undersized system. As a sales professional, this particularly exasperates me as I feel these OEMs abuse the level of trust pl...

From Occupational Health & Safety  Combustible Dust Vacuums Save Lives and Property Implementing a housekeeping routine to mitigate combustible dust minimizes explosion risk. By David Kennedy / May 01, 2015 According to a 2012 report by the NFPA, there were an estimated 8,600 structural fires reported to U.S. fire departments each year at industrial or manufacturing properties between 2006 and 2010. Dust, fiber, or lint (including sawdust) accounted for 12 percent of the items first ignited, just behind flammable or combustible liquids and gases, which topped the list at 13 percent. When fugitive dust is unchecked, these fires can quickly escalate into catastrophic secondary dust explosions, causing devastating injury, death, and property damage. Shocking cases like the Imperial Sugar dust explosion that injured 42 and killed 14 and the Kunshan Zhongrong Metal Products explosion in China last August that killed 146 people stand out most in the public eye, ...

From Harrington Group, Inc. NFPA 652: Standard on Fundamentals of Combustible Dust is Coming! Posted on Thursday, April 30th, 2015  This summer, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) will issue NFPA 652: Standard on Fundamentals of Combustible Dust . Though NFPA had previously developed several standards addressing combustible dust, those standards were more industry or commodity specific and have often contained different, and sometimes conflicting, requirements. NFPA 652 will consolidate the basic requirements among the existing dust standards and will apply to all industries that are exposed to combustible dust hazards. It will help overcome problems in following the current combustible dust standards by providing guidance to identify and manage fire and explosion hazards caused by combustible dusts. It will also direct users to the combustible dust standards that are specific to their industry or commodity. The need...

"Near the end of the day shift on Jan. 19, 2012, a saw on the large headrig Roche operated "deviated" throwing up sparks and lighting the nearby sawdust. That's not unheard of in a sawmill, but this time it also sent a burst of flame high enough to nearly hit the ceiling as it climbed the sawdust floating in the air." Lakeland inquest fraught with controversy -  from The Working Forest, Your #1 source for forestry and forest industry news, and the Prince George Citizen By: Prince George Citizen Set to resume next month, plenty of ground has already been covered over the two-and-a-half weeks the coroner's inquest into the fatal Lakeland Mills sawmill explosion has been held so far. By the time it was temporarily adjourned on March 26, the inquest had heard from 47 witnesses, beginning with the widows of Al Little and Glenn Roche, who died from the extensive burns they suffered in the April 23, 2012 blast. Another 22 people were injured, many seriou...