DSS187: Five Key Takeaways From The 2021 Combustible Dust Incident Report

Updated July 25, 2024

In today’s episode of the Dust Safety Science podcast, we cover five key takeaways from the 2021 Combustible Dust Incident Report. This is the fire and explosion incident report that we release every six months through Dust Safety Science, and the 2021 year-end report just came out in April of 2022.

Why is Incident Reporting Important?

When we started Dust Safety Science back in 2017-2018, with the mission of seeing a year of zero fatalities worldwide by 2038, the big question was, “How are we going to measure that?” It comes back to the famous Peter Drucker quote: “What gets measured, gets managed.” The incident database is our yardstick for measuring combustible dust fires and‌ ‌explosions. ‌Every six months, we release an incident report, which is just a snapshot‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌database.

Over the last five years, we have logged 960 fires, 357 explosions, 720 injuries, and 126 fatalities from more than 40 countries around the world. Then every six months, we release a mid-year report and then a year-end report. This incident reporting allows us to check in twice a year to:

Measure what’s happening as best we can
Pull out the main themes that we’re seeing, which include challenges with smaller operations

Common Reporting Challenges

Before we get into these five takeaways, let’s review three challenges that come up time and time again.

The first one is that the majority of combustible dust fires and explosions are not reported or, if they are, they can be misreported as other types of incidents. When we perform quantitative analysis of the data, this makes estimating the error extremely difficult. We can say there is an average of 30 explosions in the US every year but we’re only getting a small slice of what’s actually happening. The trends observed can’t really be compared to each other with a high degree of accuracy.

The second challenge is that our best coverage is in North America and, in particular, the United States. Tracking incidents in other countries is harder. Language is a challenge. Regulations and requirements are different in different countries, so quantitative analysis becomes more difficult.

The third challenge is that we are improving our systems over time, so results can change. ‌In‌ ‌North‌ ‌America, when an incident has injuries or fatalities, our teams perform enhanced research based on protocols. We reach out to Fire Departments. We follow the victims. We see their support channels. We’re also working on improving our global coverage by working with unofficial representatives from different countries – people who keep supplying information about what’s happening there, year after year.

Takeaway #1: Map Out What We See

We see around 30 ‘major’ dust explosions in the US every year. When we say ‘major,’ we mean there might have been injury, a large loss, or even a fatality in some cases. It’s hard to say what percentage of that actually occurs. In terms of dust explosions, our data does appear to be slightly higher than what we see with Chemical Safety Board data, but not by that much: only about‌ ‌30%‌ ‌higher.

Takeaway #2: Incidents Involving Dust Collection System May Be Playing a Smaller Role in Overall Loss

Incidents involving dust collection systems may be playing a smaller role in the overall loss. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board’s 2006 Combustible Dust Hazards Study suggested that up to 40% of the incidents were involving dust collection systems. However, during the last three years of incident reporting, we’re really seeing that the dust collection systems are playing a lesser role. In 2019, we saw that 22% of explosions, which is about half of what we are seeing from the US Chemical Safety Board incident reporting, were in dust collection systems.

Takeaway #3: The More Detailed the Analysis of Large Loss Incidents, the Better

This takeaway actually comes from an incident that happened on February 25th, 2021 in Tuas, Singapore. An inquiry committee was put together to investigate the incident, determine why it happened, and make recommendations to the government and to the industries that were involved as well.

The initial assumption was that the explosion involved potato starch, as it was in a facility that made fire wrap from a mix of material containing potato starch and other materials. However, it turned out that the potato starch was a secondary factor and played a lesser role in the injuries and fatalities than they originally thought.

Takeaway #4: Coal Mining and Handling is Still a Big Challenge Worldwide

Coal mining and handling around the world is still a big challenge. This is an interesting one because we’re seeing a decrease in the use of coal in North America in terms of power generation and even mining activity. ‌However, this remains a‌ ‌challenge‌ ‌in other‌ ‌regions‌ ‌of‌ ‌the‌ ‌world.

One major explosion took place on November 25th, 2021,in Gramoteino, Russia. ‌This explosion in a coal mine appeared to be caused by methane, although more information is hard to come by. ‌It ignited coal‌ ‌dust‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌ventilation‌ ‌shaft,‌ ‌filling‌ ‌the underground‌ ‌mine‌ ‌with‌ ‌smoke.

When this happened, there were 285 people underground. Although initial rescue attempts were made, the Russian emergency services were forced to temporarily suspend operations due to the high risk of an explosion. Both methane and CO2 levels were dangerously high in the mine. At least 239 miners made it out, but at least 47 did not. ‌The fire that occurred in the ventilation shaft when coal dust ignited resulted in 51 workers being killed and 106 injured: a tragic and really unfortunate reminder that mining activities are still a big area in terms of combustible dust safety, both for fires and explosions.

Takeaway #5: Legal Ramifications for Ignoring Combustible Dust

The legal ramifications of ignoring combustible dust are becoming more prevalent around the world for corporations, workers, supervisors, and management teams.

With the incident that happened in Russia, local news sources reported that three people, including the director of the mine and his deputy, had been arrested on suspicion of violating industrial safety rules. The court ordered two safety inspectors, who had issued certificates for the mine that month but did not actually check the facility, to remain in custody.

More recently, a grand jury has issued indictments in connection with the Didion Milling explosion. These indictments suggest that Didion Milling willfully violated two federal safety standards promulgated under OSHA by failing to develop and implement a written strategy for preventing and removing combustible grain dust and failing to install explosion suppression and venting equipment on the dust collection system.

We’re seeing these types of incidents happen in countries around the world. We’re having large-loss combustible dust explosions where the facility is operating with large amounts of fugitive dust without an effective cleanup program or prevention and protection measures in place. We are also seeing legal ramifications arising.

Conclusion

The 2021 Combustible Dust Incident report has made it possible to identify a lot of trends and areas for further study. All takeaways will be applied to help us achieve our goal of a year without combustible dust fatalities by 2038.

If you have questions about the contents of this or any other podcast episode, you can go to our ‘Questions from the Community’ page and submit a text message or video recording. We will then bring someone on to answer these questions in a future episode.