Combustible Dust Related Fire Awareness

• Sawmill Fire In Pike County | NBC4i.com - Annotated

  Excellent example of one of dozens combustible dust related fires that occur annually throughout the manufacturing sector. Important mention is made of the repeat response by the local fire departments for combustible dust related fires.

  tags: combustible dust related fire, fire, department, response

  • 'fire calls from time-to-time because the dust'
    • Excellent example of one of dozens combustible dust related fired that occur annually throughout the manufacturing sector. Important mention is made of the repeat response by the local fire departments for combustible dust related fires. - post by comdust

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

ComDust Alert #2 -Combine Harvester Combustible Dust Fires

I found an interesting article regarding combine harvester combustible dust hazards and would like to share it with everyone. It's really a combination of several stories that spans two continents, one under the equator for all you shellbacks and one above the equator here in the USA.

For instance, last week a news article from MPNnow (10/16/08) www.is.gd/4xV1 of a combine that caught fire in Farmington, N.Y., which was a total loss of $240,000. The farmer thinks that a spark from one of the blades ignited a layer of soybean dust inside the equipment. This sounds so familiar in the manufacturing sector where a spark travels through the duct work into the dust collector causing a fire or much worse an explosion.

Anyway, fast forward to an article today originating in Australia where harvesting of grain crops has begun and the Fire and Emergency Services Authority (FESA) is providing a warning :

"The machinery itself, I mean it's all metal so it can get hot and if there's any build up of dust on the equipment that does get hot, well then it can ignite very quickly and they'll lose a fairly expensive piece of equipment..."

These are excellent examples illustrating how hot surfaces cause combustible dust fires no matter if its in the manufacturing sector or farming sector. Until reading these articles originating from both sides of the Pacific Ocean I had no idea there was a combustible dust hazard on farm equipment. I wonder if all the global farmers operating those very expensive combine harvesters know about the combustible dust hazards?

10/13/08 Combine Fire-Argos, Indiana
10/6/08 Combine Fire - Elma, Iowa
1o/2/08 Combine Fire-Wallingford, Iowa

Coal Dust Fire India Thermal Plant

Third combustible coal dust fire in the past three months in India, at a coal-fired electric generating plant. Maybe a strict housekeeping program would lessen the likelihood of the next fire. NFPA 120 Standard for Coal Preparation Plants, is an excellent resource in preventative and mitigative measures here in the United States.

Additionally, the PRB Coal Users Group works proactively with their membership in sharing "best engineering practices" in the handling of coal at energy plants. Also, Hazard Control Technologies, a supplier of industrial firefighting equipment offers a wide array of products and training that assists firefighters in responding to coal dust fires at power plants.

Multiple Repeat Wood Pellet Plant Fires

http://bangornews.com/news/t/news.aspx?articleid=168495&zoneid=164

After a three month respite from a previous combustible dust related fire, Corinth Wood Pellets experiences another fire. The last fire caused thousands of dollars worth of damage. Currently there is no OSHA record in the IMIS database that the facility had been inspected previously since the last incident. With only 12 highly dedicated and professional OSHA safety inspectors alloted for the entire state of Maine, it should not be expected that OSHA can inspect over 1,8oo manufacturing facilities on a regular reoccurring basis.

The Pellet Fuels Institute lists 24 wood pellet manufacturing facilities amongst it's membership on the east coast. Since May 2008, over 10% of east coast membership facilities have experienced fires. Additionally, last month AJ Stoves & Pellets, located in Marion, PA, not a member of PFI, experienced a dust explosion in their hopper. With these plants operating at 100% capacity, future combustible dust related fires and explosions are occurring at a rapidly alarming rate.

OSHA resources are already strained and less than 10% of the nations manufacturing plants are inspected with the unique NAICS in the wood pellet industry. Would local fire marshal inspections lessen the number of incidents while at the same time reduce the severity of combustible dust related fires and explosions? A community in New Zealand offers an excellent alternative to fire safety concerning commercial buildings, utilizing fire inspectors. Can we do the same in the United States instead of tasking OSHA to enforce building fire safety?

Recent Explosions and Fires

8/22/08-AJ Stoves & Pellets- dust explosion/hopper
8/15/08 Corinth Wood Pellets- fire/sawdust dryer
8/10/08 New England Wood Pellets- fire/pellet mill
7/15/08-AJ Stoves & Pellets- dust explosion/hopper
5/20/08 Corinth Wood Pellets- fire/exterior burner

Flare-up Combustible Dust Explosions/Fires

Over the past nine days a multitude of combustible dust related explosions and fires have occurred across eight states on both sides of the Mississippi in a myriad of manufacturing industries. Recent incidents include paper, wood, textile, chemical, and plastic manufacturing sectors.

The equipment involved includes a silo, oven, dryer, electrical panel , external burner, auger, and ductwork. Luckily, injuries have been limited to a burn victim in last week's unfortunate wood fiber silo explosion. Prayers still go out to the family and worker for a speedy recovery.

Overall economic damage is in the tens of thousands of dollars. Over 50% of the incidents are reoccurences with combustible dust as the culprit causing a repeat of a dust fire or explosion. For three days last week there was two combustible dust explosions and fires/day, totaling six incidents in three days.

Hopefully after the rash of 14 combustible dust fires and explosions for the month of May, no additional incidents will occur. So lets all cross our fingers for the next two days and pray that the dragon takes a much needed rest. If it keeps up at this pace, 2008 will accumulate a dismal scorecard of over 160 reported combustible dust fires and explosions.

This is in stark contrast to the average of 12 combustible dust explosions and fires/year that the Chemical Safety Board submitted in their Combustible Dust Hazard study with recommendations to OSHA for the period of 1980-2005, which included 281 incidents.

The problem with only acknowledging 281 incidents, is that over 90% of the complex issue concerning combustible dust has not been recognized by industry, governmental regulatory agencies, trade associations, safety professionals, and state/federal legislators. Until all stakeholders recognize and acknowledge that over 3,000 combustible dust explosions and fires have occurred in the past three decades then an understanding of the depth and breadth of the problem will be absent.

In the meantime incidents will occur throughout the nation's manufacturing industries with the explosive atmospheres generated daily in the workplace without precautionary preventative, mitigative, administrative, and technical control procedures.

Multitude Combustible Dust Incidents in One Day

Thursday started out as a normal day at many workplaces across the nation. After the lunchtime break, things would begin to change and heat up real quick in a span of two hours across three states. Prior to the clock striking 2:00 P.M. CST, a combustible dust fire consisting of titanium dust flared up in the dust collector at a dental equipment manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania.

In the Midwest, at approximately 2:30 P.M, as firefighters were responding to the titanium combustible dust fire at the Den-Tal-Ez Inc dental facility in Lancaster, Pa, a combustible dust explosion rocked the Farmer's Co-op Society grain elevator in Sanborn, Iowa.

An hour and a half later as events were just getting heated up, the afternoon turned into a leapfrog event as Baldwin Feed and Seed grain elevator in Baldwin, Wisconsin became engulfed in flames. This is very unusual for so many combustible dust related explosions and fires to occur with a span of two hours on the same day. Luckily there were no injuries only heavy economic damage to the businesses.

It's All the Same
Combustible dust is combustible dust. It doesn't matter if it's grain , metal, rubber, plastic, wood, coal, etc. All this dust is generated from a raw product of combustible particulate solids. The only difference in the dusts is the heat of combustion (oxidation), which is a measure of the rate of combustion. Which could range from 1200 KJ/mole O2 for magnesium all the way down to 470 KJ/mole O2 for starch. Proper preventive and costly mitigative measures needs to be instituted with all classes of organic, synthetic, coal, and metals. Until a comprehensive combustible dust standard is instituted more events will occur on a daily and weekly basis.

Since the OSHA grain facility combustible standard was instituted in 1988, occurrences of grain dust explosions have been reduced 30 %, with an average of 14 events annually. Have we reached an acceptable level now with the grain facility standard ? Or should a review of current procedures be in order?

Dust Explosion Research Institute
A Dust Explosion Research Institute (DERI) facility in the United States would be a good move. The time has arrived for all stakeholders in industry, academia, and cooperation with governmental agencies in facilitating the planning stages for a combustible dust research institute. This is not a novel idea, as Norway has done so decades ago at it's CMI facility in close collaboration with the University of Norway.

The results have led to the exciting field of combustible dust computational fluid dynamic (CFD) studies in conjunction with computer aided design. GEXCON, a leading Norwegian research and consultancy in explosion scenarios took over the work of CMI in 2000 and now provides a revolutionary FLame ACceleration Simulator (FLACS) in modeling the dust explosion process.

Combining physical properties of minimum explosive concentrations, minimum ignition temperatures, minimum ignition energy, and deflagration index's into the computer application of CFD will provide a cross spectrum of industries the intricate nature of combustible dusts. Much more research needs to be done as this is only the tip of the iceberg. Question is, will, the industrial powers of our nation be up to the challenge?

For others who are up to the challenge be sure to stop by the GEXCOM booth at the 2008 AIChE Spring National Meeting April 6-10, 2008 Ernest N. Morial Convention Center
New Orleans, La. . Olav Roald Hansen and Kees van Wingerden will be there with demo programs of FLACS and the Dust Explosion Simulation Code, which is the awesome CFD code for simulating the course of industrial dust explosions in complex geometries such as we experience here in the U.S. . Click here for brochure

Click here for FLACS video

Debut April Combustible Dust Incident

After 14 combustible related dust incidents last month which included 6 explosions, the month of April will be starting out in the same dismal form. On Tuesday, April Fool's Day, a combustible dust fire started in the silo that contained sawdust generated from the wooden flooring manufacturing process at Appalachian Wood Floors in Portsmouth, Ohio bordering Kentucky on the northern banks of the industrious Ohio river.

Ohio is no stranger to combustible dust fires and explosions. Less than two months earlier and hundred miles west, further up the Ohio River in Cincinnati, a wooden products plant vanished off the face of the earth as the owner watched nearly three decades of memories burn to the ground. Toughest part was the mentally anguishing dilemma of the nearly two dozen employees who no longer had a place to go to work the next day on Monday morning. Luckily no injuries in this incident either.

Just over three years ago, about an hours drive south from Lake Erie in Leipsic, Ohio at a pet food manufacturer, a combustible dust explosion occurred in the silo injuring one firefighter. The day before the incident, firefighters worked to clear smoldering cellulose in the silo. It is believed that an ember remained in the machinery overnight and caused the flash dust explosion the following afternoon.

Preventive and mitigative measures is very expensive for business with the installation of detection, isolation, ventilation and suppression fire equipment. Should this fire and explosion equipment be required at all business's that handle combustible particulate solids that generate combustilbe dust? Thats a tough question to answer especially with the many small companies that barely are getting by with other overhead costs.

A cost benefit analysis would best be able to determine an equitable solution. In the meantime the clock is ticking for the next combustible dust explosion in the magnitude of the tragic preventable and predictable Imperial Sugar Refinery explosion two months ago on the western banks of the Savannah River in Port Wentworth , Georgia.