NFPA Journal - Spring 2023 - 58

IN 1923,
when NFPA published the first standard on combustible
dust, the hazards presented by this industrial
byproduct had been known for decades. The problem
of combustible dust, for example, had been
discussed in the aftermath of what became known
as " The Great Mill Disaster " of 1878, a catastrophic
grain mill explosion in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
The blast destroyed the Washburn A Mill, then the
world's largest grain mill, and a handful of adjacent
mills, reducing the city's milling capacity by as much
as half. Eighteen people died in the incident, which
was blamed on an accumulation of grain dust.
Despite the acknowledged hazard and a growing
body of knowledge on how to alleviate it, no national
regulations were enacted to address the problem of
combustible dust directly-and dust-related explosions
and fires, along with loss of life and property,
continued to occur. The year 1919 was especially
trying. On May 20, a blast at a feed grinding plant
in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, destroyed the facility and
killed three people. Two days later, in Cedar Rapids,
Iowa, an immense explosion-one reportedly felt
30 miles away-leveled the Douglas Starch Works,
killing 43 and injuring 30. In September, a large
grain elevator in Kansas City, Missouri, exploded,
killing 14 and injuring 10. In all of these incidents
and many more, dust was identified as the culprit.
The devastation of 1919 provided much of the
impetus behind the formation of an NFPA committee
on combustible dust hazards in 1922, and for the
creation the following year of the first combustible
dust standard, which addressed dust explosions in
grain terminals and flour mills. That initial standard,
the forerunner to NFPA 61, Standard for the Prevention
of Fires and Dust Explosions in Agricultural
and Food Processing Facilities, eventually led to a
host of specialized standards across a range of industries:
wood products, agriculture, metals, sugar,
plastics, and many more. Over time, documents
were consolidated, new standards were published
to address new hazards, and further consolidations
were undertaken. At the moment, work is proceeding
on a new comprehensive dust standard-NFPA
660, Standard for Combustible Dusts, scheduled for
release in 2025-that will consolidate six existing
NFPA dust standards into a single document.
The effort to produce a new comprehensive
standard comes at an encouraging moment in the
ongoing fight against dust hazards, says Kevin
Kreitman, a former fire chief who is currently city
manager of Millersburg, Oregon, and chair of the
correlating committee for NFPA 660. " There's more
interest in this problem than ever before from industry,
from the public, from just about every sector, "
58 | NFPA JOURNAL * SPRING 2023
he says. " When I first joined the combustible metals
committee, a big committee was one that had maybe
eight people on it. Now none of our dust committees
have fewer than 35 members, and that's a good
thing-that kind of involvement is one of the biggest
changes I've seen over the past 20 years. No matter
where the members are coming from, they all have
a genuine interest in making sure that what's in the
codes is what we need to provide safety for those
industries and for the people who work in them. "
Specialization and
Consolidation
Despite that emerging sense of collective responsibility
in recent decades, it hasn't been enough to
prevent a steady drumbeat of catastrophic industrial
AP PHOTO/POOL
NFPA Journal - Spring 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - Spring 2023
