As a teenager, I was janitor at a wood-art hobby shop. One of my first assignments was to use compressed air and a wand to clear wood dust from the suspended lights. Until now I didn't realize just how dangerous that task was. My only protection was a face mask in literally a fog of wood dust. All the doors were closed so dust would not enter the art facilities. That building would have been blown to smithereens by a spark.
I’ve seen this happen many time while working in the paper industry. The second or third explosions become so powerful. I remember one time there was a fire and the fire department was working to contain the fire. The trouble was they were spraying the beams with water. While some of the dust became wet the majority of it remained dry and caused more and more fires to spread. The firemen were then ordered to stop spraying straight streams of water and just spray a fine fog of water in order to not raise more dust into the air. Then crews went to work with front end loaders to dig out burning bins of wood chips and wet them down outside the mill on the ground. This happened at a subsidiary OSB plant that we were called out to help. In time tricks were learn that would reduce the need for the fire departments to come the fight the fires. House keeping and learning how to deal with these fires were very effective.
@@roykoffi7942 Violently so. Any dust is flammable if confined, and the silos confine it tightly. It's also very fine and spreads easy. Once the roof of the silo blows, the flaming dust scatters and explodes.
Having worked in a lumber plant for 15 years. They have suction hoses for anywhere they are cutting to catch 85% of the dust that is created. Tuesdays and Fridays over time was offered to walk around the plant sucking up piles of saw dust with a 10 gallon cordless vacuum on your back. That had been part of the safety protocol for 200 years before I worked there. And Osha copied it and made it mandatory for lumber processing plants of all kinds in New Hampshire
I worked for a short time at a (retired), grain elevator in Thunder Bay, Ontario. It was re-outfitted to make compressed pellets of wood for some new-fangled type, high efficiency furnaces. I wasn't working that day; Frank called me up and said he was at work. He had a pair of April Wine tickets (they were playing at the university pub), and he offered them to me. I said "EFF YEAH!!", and drove over to the elevator to get the tickets. I hung out with him and the guys working that afternoon/evening, for a bit, had a coffee and a smoke, shot the shit...and went home to relax before the night started. I missed that explosion by a few minutes, at most. No warning, and extremely volatile - instantly. The sound must have been deafening. From what I understand, it started in the basement and spiraled up the staircase, through consecutive floors, and it blew a massive section of the silo onto the ice where the big lakers would load up (in an inlet kind of protected area, on Lake Superior). Massive section of one side just KA-BOOMED. Frank sustained some nasty injuries, Darcy was probably close to death, throat swollen up and serious burns, but he survived. Man, I hope these guys are all still alive and well. The boss was a super guy...terrible event that took place that day, and the boss certainly didn't deserve that in his life. Who would? A brand new business, probably major personal and outside investment with promise of decent returns, he was employing people...went completely awry for everyone there, and I barely missed it. For me, just looking at the aftermath of the explosion(s), a few days after the fire dept, police, insurance were finished investigations, was frightening. Metal doors wide enough to accommodate forklift passage were bent and torn apart like a scene from the 2001 9/11 evil event. You'd probably need a forklift to install those doors -- they were huge steel doors. Looking straight down the staircase...straight up the staircase. MASSIVE detonation. The main room that we bagged the product in, and the shipping/receiving area basically, always had about 30 or 50 or maybe more skids, all loaded and shrink wrapped - they were blown all to hell. The power that that alone would require. Comparable to blowing seeds of off a Dandelion - that easy. Honestly, I don't know how any of them survived, looking at the aftermath. I didn't even see it all. I just saw the main area, the staircases I just looked up and down...and that massive section blown out the side of the silo onto the lake ice. That was more than enough for me to witness. The devastation on the boss's face...damn near as terrible as the elevator/silo itself. I shook his hand, said I am so damned sorry, and never saw him again. I think 5 guys were there that afternoon/evening shift, and they all survived. I have posted this same comment before, on a youtube video or two elsewhere. Quite the story...about dust.
Lol yeah maybe they should have taught it to the teacher you look at those wood classes in school and it's like there's dust on every inch of everything.
Wood dust is used in special effects in films to make explosions. We used to fill air canons with it and shoot it through windows....makes a huge flame that lasts only a few seconds and dies off. It's cheap, and available anywhere without a special permit.
I have a basement workshop at home with lots of sawdust from a radial arm saw, jigsaw, band saw, etc. I never thought of this hazard. My water heater has a pilot light. I wonder why you never hear of home workshop explosions? Is there any risk I need to watch out for?
"I had a friend" who while sweeping his home wood shop, pushed a fine cloud of dust under his water heater... He did get a small explosion, and was not amused. I think the risk is low in a home shop, because you don't have a bunch of equipment running all day at the same time. The risk to the lungs is real in any shop size. Dust collection systems are handy for keeping the dust down
Yes, same risk but smaller scale. At one time, I had a basement workshop with a table saw. I kept my work area and all surroudings very clean with a power vacuum for this purpose. Frankly, I did this primarily to avoid tracking or otherwise carrying dust into the living areas. Housekeeping was already a constant chore. Also, a dirty workspace is simply dangerous and crap gets in the way of accurate measurements and well-working tools.
You don't have a fire unless you have a spark. But there's more static electricity You don't usually see than could give you one. Think synthetic blankets. They're full of static.
"Keep your nose to the grindstone" is one of those quotes that's often misunderstood. People think it means to simply work hard and pay attention to what you're doing, but its original meaning was for workers to use their sense of smell to identify when something was overheating (like a grindstone in a grain mill being pushed too hard), which was often their first and only warning before disaster could strike.
The coal used in power plants to generate electricity comes in as chunks but before is it delivered to the boiler it is ground into dust that’s as fine as powder. It helps with heat regulation and release.
This is the first time I have seen a good explanation of how a small explosion lofts more dust to create a larger explosion, starting a rapid sequence of larger and larger explosions. The whole team behind this excellent video deserves the highest praise for a job well done.
@@antoinefantaisie You're saying hi to them but you don't understand the seriousness of what they said. You could literally be killed while trying to make a cup of coffee.
I worked for a flooring manufacturer several years ago in the maintenance department. One of my jobs was to run a diesel engine bobcat in the dust accumulation building,and feed the auger that fed the sawdust fired boiler,the heat of which was used in the manufacturing process of the flooring. Sometimes the dust in the dust building was so thick , visibility was zero and you had to stop the Bobcat and wait a minute before you could see. How there was never a dust explosion is beyond me. One job Im glad I don't do anymore.
@@BrianGLee-bc7hj An overheated bearing from a sugar-transporting conveyor belt is what might have started the whole thing, according to the United States Chemical Safety Board (USCSB) (that & the conveyor eventually having an enclosure added to it, which confined/trapped the sugar dust so it couldn't disperse into the conveyor tunnel, which was properly ventilated).
Many moons ago I used to work in a factory that made uPVC Windows. The raw material came in powder form and was pumped from the tankers into silos where it was mixed prior to being sent to the extrusion machines. I was told that each of the pipes has an earth wire running through it to remove any static electricity caused by the powder friction. The thought of the 3 powder silos detonating was rather sobering
Just not wood. It happens in places where fine dust particulars are present. It could be a factory where they are milling wheat or flour, grain silos, or coal dust. Even in salt mines it's a danger. It's why if you see underground salt or coal mines, when digging aggregate, they'll use water to both cool the tools, but to keep the dust down to prevent ignition...
Uh, no. Powdered salt is neither combustible nor does it support combustion. It is far too stable to do that it is quite happy in the chemical state that it is. It is at lowest energy state most likely to cause the two substances that make it up are extremely reactive but they love each other too much and do not want to part after they combine. That's the lay man's version. I could give you the chemists version but I doubt that it would help. By the way I am a chemist.
“This video should be viewed in conjunction with training in combustible wood dust hazard recognition and mitigation controls.” Lol nah I’m here for the boom boom.
Manufacturing and process plants have come a long way from I started. My experience working in Oil Refineries, Chemical Plants, etc, from very large companies to a few mom and pop comps. For one reason or another, I found the smaller companies lacked safety and process training. My opinion is OSHA focuses on the very large companies, I believe it’s the dollar amount they put on the fines.
No, the problem is the Republicans are continually defunding OSHA and as a result they have to pick and choose to investigate problems that will cause the greatest loss of life or structure. Go Tell it to the republicans in Congress they've been trying to do away with OSHA and the EPA for decades because it gets in the way of corporate profit. For the life of me I'll never understand why people hate regulations because without regulations you people who work in a factories would be no better off than they were in 1750 in England. Or people regularly maimed and killed with no recourse because labor was cheap and nobody gave a shit least of all the corporations profiting immensely from not having to provide any safety equipment or even Healthcare after the person was crippled. Do I sound bitter? You goddamn right I am.
in the 1930s a grain elevater exploded in my city from sparks from the train when it was being lifted and the hatch under it was opened, after that it was all automated and over 15 people were never found, and over 80 burn victims and crushed bodies were recovered.
A co worker of mine was blowing saw dust off around his area and the air was pretty thick with very fine to regular saw dust. I was glad no one was allowed to smoke in the building
Worked in a furniture factory in the late 90’s. People were allowed to smoke cigarettes in the factory. There were vacuums at floor level wich could suck a bud into the whole system. Never understood it was allowed.
Worked in a wood shop for 2 years. This only needed to be explained to me once, but some employees (especially temps) never took dust clean up seriously, or did stuff like use an airhose to put more dust in the air.
As someone who works in sawmills (I do maintenance on Chippers,Debarkers) while I guess his theory of ignition with the dust exc exc must be clean exc exc. I can PROMISE none of these mills clean at all and the cust is EEEEEVERYWHERE usually its not sparks from motors exc that cause it...the dust and atmosphere is usually to moist from the wood being processed. It's machines catching fire bearings exc or general human error via welding or cutting torches :D and the fires are brutal.
My favorite part was when the dust exploded, that was cool. Makes you think why Egyptian tombs don't explode given how dusty mummies are and how hot the deserts if Egypt can get. Imagine some Pharaoh just exploding from out the sand like a cannon randomly because of a dust explosion and all the locals thinking he had been awakened.
Dust collection is key. But that is a way to reduce the risk. The prevention is checking for wood dust in critical places and inspection of the electrical switchgear. Also manual cleaning has to be done often. The use of a particle level monitor will help to determine the risk and ensure that levels of fine airborne dust are not a explosion hazard
Had an apprentice start blowing out electrical boxes with compressed air years ago. Thankfully someone stopped him before anything exploded, but when we looked over he was surrounded by a fresh cloud of dust and happily stirring up more with the air compressor. Proper training is also key, no one was provided training on dust mitigation until that day, now all new hires are.
Manual cleaning eh? We’ve all heard the story of the new guy shoveling dropped grain around a silo with a metal head before they tackled him to the ground.
Surprised no mention of electrostatic ignition of dust. Can be caused simply by a buildup of charge in the air, and especially moving air -- such as in a dust collection system. Grounding of the ductwork can mitigate this.
@peteroleary9447 Indeed, have you ever vacuumed a really dusty floor in low humidity conditions? If the hose touches your arm it can snap you so good it will damn near make you drop the hose. All from the fine dust moving at high speed banging against the plastic hose on its way into the vacuum cleaner.
I once made a flame bomb from cooking flour. I got a coffee can and punched a hole in the bottom of it. I then put a little funnel into the hole and attached a small hose to the funnel. I put regular flour in the funnel, I then put kerosine soaked toilet paper in the bottom of the coffee can. I lit the paper on fire. At a distance I blew into the hose which made a cloud of flour. The burning paper ignited the flour then, BOOM!! As an electrician I installed many explosion proof light switches to prevent these kinds of explosions when I worked flour mill jobs. Just an ordinary thing like baking flour in certain conditions can be very dangerous.
I work the industrial side. Some people don't have a clue. As to what can happen when dust goes off. Grain dust is highly explosive, along with sugar. Grain dust usually has two explosions. First one sets off the settled dust. Game over. Me and two other people almost died. At the top of a grain mill. An electrician wired a motor brake wrong. He refused to listen to us. Drove off. When we turned power on.A fire ball blew up. We were lucky that day.
Clearly the safest solution it to just make all the wood shop buildings a vacuum and have all the employees in space suits. No explosions without Oxygen! Take *THAT* you combustible menace! ✊
I work in a commercial cabinet shop. Last year a spark or ember went into the dust collector. Nobody knew until it was an inferno because the collection system is outside. The fire department seemed to take forever. A few of us were trying to put it out with fire extinguishers and I personally think if we hadn't have done that it would have been devastating. We only had to replace the bags and do some painting. It was scary to say the least. People need to realize that an ember can sit for hours before igniting. We are lucky it happened early in the day and not after we shut down that afternoon. Keep your dust collector's clean. Empty them daily. It's no joke.
This is the effect I think which did in the LUSITANIA. The torpedo detonating set off a coal dust explosion. The ship was reaching the end of its run and the coal bunkers were low leaving a lot of space for air. When the torpedo detonated, the remaining coal in the bunkers was thrown into the air creating coal dust clouds and ignited. The torpedo alone shouldn't have sunk the ship. The rifle bullets it was carrying likely didn't go off.
Where I was at, the first two hours of every week, every person (every shift) worked to clean and clear material, identify issues and the like. So, safe operation was literally everyone’s responsibility. In the end, at least 38 hours of solid work got done every week (per shift), but with fewer mechanical or production issues/stoppages and, yeah, having nothing explode was a definite plus. Seemed like a pretty good policy to me.
Actually saw the results of this in my hometown in Wyoming at what was the Louisiana Pacific sawmill. Destroyed the sawmill, and caused it to burn to the ground. The explosion rocked my house over a mile away from the sawmill, while my dad was on his lunch break from being a lumber grader. When he returned to help fight the fire (he was the sawmills fire chief as well) he said the heat was so intense that it was melting the metal siding of the building. Two employees, a maintenance manager and production manager, were injured in the explosion. It started in the air compressor room that my dad had written up for exposed electrical wiring as he was also a safety inspector, arced and cause the explosion. The maintenance manager and night shift production manager were on their way to fix the issue while everyone was on their lunch break. Sadly they weren't able to reach the breaker panel to shut it off before the explosion. Both men were blown off the stair well, the maintenance manager recurved third degree burns over a large portion of his body, several broken bones and was life flighted to Casper, Wyoming where he recovered. The production manager had several broken bones and a few other small burns and was taken to the hospital in Rawlins, Wyoming. Both men recovered from their injuries and it took nearly a year to rebuild the sawmill. The investigation proved the day shift maintenance manager had failed to remedy the situation, opting to make it night shifts problem (hence why the two night shift managers were going to fix the problem). The day shift maintenance manager and production manager were friends (it's a small town so no shock) were trying to cover it up and frame my dad, the night shift production manager and the night shift maintenance manager. It was discovered and both men were fired. The nightshift maintenance manager eventually sued the company for an undisclosed amount and settled out of court. Corporate was planning on shutting down the mill anyway so in the end the sawmill closed, was put up for sale and ten years later a company from Colorado bought it and put it back into operation. They revamped the entire sawmill, spending millions. The sawmill is now Saratoga Forestry in Saratoga, Wyoming and produces beetle kill lumber that is highly sought after all over the US. They preform a vital service cutting down all the better kill timber, removing a massive fire hazard in the Medicine Bow National Forest. This sawmill has been in operation on that sight for over 100 years. Four years ago a fire started in the log yard, caused by a discarded cigarette. The sawmill lost most of their timber and were down for several weeks only to have the yard pile up with timber. The owners said it will take them well over a hundred years to put a dent in the beetle kill timber in the forest. They have plans to expand production and employee 200 people in the community.tl the most they employed when it was LP was 120.
I worked in 3 wood shops where this was a present problem and no employees were ever told of the danger present in the shop I even worked at a sand lasting place where they use steel bead blasting where the machine was well out of maintenance and sprayed steel dust everywhere in the shop also super dangerous and no one was told of the dangers plus no protection for hazardous chemicals either acids and solvents etc
I worked in a sawmill when I was younger and operated the ripsaw and it would build up the very fine sawdust powder and just one handful and a lighter would make a very huge fireball. So cool but very dangerous!
I remember hearing about one of the carpentry shops at BCIT almost blowing up from all the wood dust. A few weeks later a dust fire happened in the same shop. I had to go there from the other carpentry shop to pickup a skillsaw and a few drills. When i walked there everyone was coming out from the shop to hear there was a fire. Gave me an excuse for a smoke break since it was a bit of a walk.
I was 4 years old when I saw the chipboard + plywood factory disappear behind the smoke. Then there was a flame reaching the top of the 76 m high chimney. The chipboard factory had exploded and part of the power plant with wood dust storage. It was during lunch break, and in the chipboard factory was only one cleaning lady, who died. One man got very searious injuries.
One of our newbies once asked me "Is it normal for the saw to spark while you're using it?" after his first weekend alone. Blade company had sent us blades of the wrong size so it was clipping the riving knife while it spun. Goddamn we need better training.
I have just realised, that there is not just one type of dust. There is wood dust, plastic dust, etc. Sometimes, it sucks to not have English as my mother tongue language.
A friend of mine had a story of 5 guys partying in the motel room talking about dust explosions nobody believed it a guy went out in the hallway and got the maid's vacuum emptied it into a pillowcase shook it up lit the corner it exploded blue a guy out of the 2nd story window on the hood of a car
It’s the same effect you can get (make) with flour or custard powder. Think of it like the particles are so tiny you have, effectively, a flammable gas!
The problem with the sewing-machine-cabinet place I worked at in Orem, Utah was that everyone who worked where the saw dust was higher than ankle deep almost every work day is that ... ALL the workers in that part of the factory were evaluated on the number of pieces they produced per day. There was no incentive to remove saw dust because doing so would take time that could have otherwise been used for production. I looked up the place ten minutes ago on the Internet, and I am glad to learn that it is out of business. I don't know if that owner - operator changed his priorities or work location since I left there in 1994. ------ Here is another comment for another video about the same work place. Under the owner - operator, ALL the foremen discouraged me from putting the lid on the container of methyl-ethyl-keytone -- surface cleaner -- after the amount needed (about every 30 minutes) was dispensed. Not one person in the factory ever wore either a respirator or a carbon filtered face mask ... or even a paper dust mask. No personal protective equipment was ever made available. One of the foremen told me it was an inefficient use of my time to put the lid on the storage container. The same foreman complained of chronic headaches which is a primary symptom of prolonged exposure to m.e.k.
I worked for a company manufacturing wood panels for the construction industry, we had quite a few explosions which resulted in 1 death plus injuries. I left that company 14 years ago. The company overtime added various safety measures to reduce the risks from sensors to blast doors venting in a safe direction if a explosion occurred etc.
At what level does this become a hazard? I work on a framing crew, all heavy smokers. (Ignition source), Ive recorded levels of 23mg/m3 (around work areas) on a busy day when were enclosed with a roof. Open to environmental is around 9mg. Now knowing about this danger i want to keep us safe. Please let me know if you know what concentration level becomes a hazrad. (Been framing for 7 years never ever heard about this even word of mouth)
This is really depend on the dust itself, humidity, particle sizes, etc. The way to know it is by doing the dust testing in the lab. I'd recommend to do good housekeeping or having dust collector system to reduce the risk. Lots of company never face these situation before because the chance is very low but once it happens. It took less then a second for explosion to take place as video. So better beware about it before happen.
I had this happen in a garage one time using a blower to clean up a bunch of dust and debree off of a floor. Got all dusty looking in a garage and when the furnace kicked on the entire garage lit up and blew the sliding door off hahah. Sounded like a bomb went off. I got so lucky that day only had a few singed hairs and ringing ears rest of the day.
To learn about the risks associated with combustible dust visit: www.worksafebc.com/combustible-dust
This can happen with nearly any fine dust. Even powdered coffee creamer is flamable..
Also happens to grain silos.
also powdered zinc
And like what happened with the explosion at imperial sugar. I wonder if people could actually taste the sugar in the air if they were nearby.
@@RXSVN_2 for sure they will taste the explosion though
Yea mythbusters did it with flour if i remember correctly and it scare the f out of them.
wait what, coffee creamer??
As a teenager, I was janitor at a wood-art hobby shop.
One of my first assignments was to use compressed air and a wand to clear wood dust from the suspended lights.
Until now I didn't realize just how dangerous that task was. My only protection was a face mask in literally a fog of wood dust.
All the doors were closed so dust would not enter the art facilities. That building would have been blown to smithereens by a spark.
That, and breathing the dust and whatever's in it probably isn't great, either.
Wow u could have become wood dust
I think the cascading effect is pretty interesting... each explosion knocks loose more dust, priming the air for the next blast.
Thank goodness printers use corn starch... that powder gets everywhere but usually just browns rather than ignite...
I’ve seen this happen many time while working in the paper industry. The second or third explosions become so powerful.
I remember one time there was a fire and the fire department was working to contain the fire. The trouble was they were spraying the beams with water. While some of the dust became wet the majority of it remained dry and caused more and more fires to spread. The firemen were then ordered to stop spraying straight streams of water and just spray a fine fog of water in order to not raise more dust into the air. Then crews went to work with front end loaders to dig out burning bins of wood chips and wet them down outside the mill on the ground. This happened at a subsidiary OSB plant that we were called out to help. In time tricks were learn that would reduce the need for the fire departments to come the fight the fires. House keeping and learning how to deal with these fires were very effective.
@Jason Voorhees liar
I’ve seen this happen inside grain elevators. The results are catastrophic.
So the grain dust is explosive too?
@@roykoffi7942 Violently so. Any dust is flammable if confined, and the silos confine it tightly. It's also very fine and spreads easy. Once the roof of the silo blows, the flaming dust scatters and explodes.
@@roykoffi7942 very explosive just look up Imperial sugar explosion. I know that a grain elevator explosion was futured in engineering disaster.
Having worked in a lumber plant for 15 years.
They have suction hoses for anywhere they are cutting to catch 85% of the dust that is created. Tuesdays and Fridays over time was offered to walk around the plant sucking up piles of saw dust with a 10 gallon cordless vacuum on your back.
That had been part of the safety protocol for 200 years before I worked there. And Osha copied it and made it mandatory for lumber processing plants of all kinds in New Hampshire
Pretty sure they didn't have vacuums 200 years ago...
I worked for a short time at a (retired), grain elevator in Thunder Bay, Ontario. It was re-outfitted to make compressed pellets of wood for some new-fangled type, high efficiency furnaces. I wasn't working that day; Frank called me up and said he was at work. He had a pair of April Wine tickets (they were playing at the university pub), and he offered them to me. I said "EFF YEAH!!", and drove over to the elevator to get the tickets. I hung out with him and the guys working that afternoon/evening, for a bit, had a coffee and a smoke, shot the shit...and went home to relax before the night started. I missed that explosion by a few minutes, at most. No warning, and extremely volatile - instantly. The sound must have been deafening. From what I understand, it started in the basement and spiraled up the staircase, through consecutive floors, and it blew a massive section of the silo onto the ice where the big lakers would load up (in an inlet kind of protected area, on Lake Superior). Massive section of one side just KA-BOOMED. Frank sustained some nasty injuries, Darcy was probably close to death, throat swollen up and serious burns, but he survived. Man, I hope these guys are all still alive and well. The boss was a super guy...terrible event that took place that day, and the boss certainly didn't deserve that in his life. Who would? A brand new business, probably major personal and outside investment with promise of decent returns, he was employing people...went completely awry for everyone there, and I barely missed it. For me, just looking at the aftermath of the explosion(s), a few days after the fire dept, police, insurance were finished investigations, was frightening. Metal doors wide enough to accommodate forklift passage were bent and torn apart like a scene from the 2001 9/11 evil event. You'd probably need a forklift to install those doors -- they were huge steel doors. Looking straight down the staircase...straight up the staircase. MASSIVE detonation. The main room that we bagged the product in, and the shipping/receiving area basically, always had about 30 or 50 or maybe more skids, all loaded and shrink wrapped - they were blown all to hell. The power that that alone would require. Comparable to blowing seeds of off a Dandelion - that easy. Honestly, I don't know how any of them survived, looking at the aftermath. I didn't even see it all. I just saw the main area, the staircases I just looked up and down...and that massive section blown out the side of the silo onto the lake ice. That was more than enough for me to witness. The devastation on the boss's face...damn near as terrible as the elevator/silo itself. I shook his hand, said I am so damned sorry, and never saw him again. I think 5 guys were there that afternoon/evening shift, and they all survived. I have posted this same comment before, on a youtube video or two elsewhere. Quite the story...about dust.
That's terrifying, I'm glad you all survived
Very informative!! Should be shown in school woodworking class.
Yes! I'm taking a class on that currently. I will ask him to show this video.
Lol yeah maybe they should have taught it to the teacher you look at those wood classes in school and it's like there's dust on every inch of everything.
@@thomasnc How did it go? Did you remember to show it to your teacher?
This would require teachers to teach ...not gunna happen
Why
Wood dust is used in special effects in films to make explosions. We used to fill air canons with it and shoot it through windows....makes a huge flame that lasts only a few seconds and dies off. It's cheap, and available anywhere without a special permit.
This is why shop dust collection systems are so important.
Years ago, many homes in Vancouver were heated with sawdust burning furnaces. This is likely one of the reasons they were ultimately banned.
Props to whoever did the 3D Animation. Beautiful work.
I have a basement workshop at home with lots of sawdust from a radial arm saw, jigsaw, band saw, etc. I never thought of this hazard. My water heater has a pilot light. I wonder why you never hear of home workshop explosions? Is there any risk I need to watch out for?
"I had a friend" who while sweeping his home wood shop, pushed a fine cloud of dust under his water heater... He did get a small explosion, and was not amused.
I think the risk is low in a home shop, because you don't have a bunch of equipment running all day at the same time. The risk to the lungs is real in any shop size.
Dust collection systems are handy for keeping the dust down
Yes, same risk but smaller scale. At one time, I had a basement workshop with a table saw. I kept my work area and all surroudings very clean with a power vacuum for this purpose. Frankly, I did this primarily to avoid tracking or otherwise carrying dust into the living areas. Housekeeping was already a constant chore. Also, a dirty workspace is simply dangerous and crap gets in the way of accurate measurements and well-working tools.
Its virtually impossible
Just ventilate lol
You don't have a fire unless you have a spark.
But there's more static electricity You don't usually see than could give you one. Think synthetic blankets. They're full of static.
"Keep your nose to the grindstone" is one of those quotes that's often misunderstood. People think it means to simply work hard and pay attention to what you're doing, but its original meaning was for workers to use their sense of smell to identify when something was overheating (like a grindstone in a grain mill being pushed too hard), which was often their first and only warning before disaster could strike.
The coal used in power plants to generate electricity comes in as chunks but before is it delivered to the boiler it is ground into dust that’s as fine as powder. It helps with heat regulation and release.
This is the first time I have seen a good explanation of how a small explosion lofts more dust to create a larger explosion, starting a rapid sequence of larger and larger explosions. The whole team behind this excellent video deserves the highest praise for a job well done.
i had two coworkers die from such an explosion at the same time and it started with a boiler exploding.
That's heavy I'm sorry to hear that.
Boilers are dangerous as hell. Or can be if you don't know what you're doing with it.
The visuals and narration are phenomenal
Damn dust, you scary!
@Koutarou Araki hi
@@antoinefantaisie You're saying hi to them but you don't understand the seriousness of what they said. You could literally be killed while trying to make a cup of coffee.
I worked for a flooring manufacturer several years ago in the maintenance department. One of my jobs was to run a diesel engine bobcat in the dust accumulation building,and feed the auger that fed the sawdust fired boiler,the heat of which was used in the manufacturing process of the flooring. Sometimes the dust in the dust building was so thick , visibility was zero and you had to stop the Bobcat and wait a minute before you could see. How there was never a dust explosion is beyond me. One job Im glad I don't do anymore.
This is the exact same process that was explained in the USCSB video regarding the explosion at imperial sugar. It was sugar dust.
If I recall static electricity tripped the explosion
@@BrianGLee-bc7hj An overheated bearing from a sugar-transporting conveyor belt is what might have started the whole thing, according to the United States Chemical Safety Board (USCSB) (that & the conveyor eventually having an enclosure added to it, which confined/trapped the sugar dust so it couldn't disperse into the conveyor tunnel, which was properly ventilated).
Many moons ago I used to work in a factory that made uPVC Windows. The raw material came in powder form and was pumped from the tankers into silos where it was mixed prior to being sent to the extrusion machines. I was told that each of the pipes has an earth wire running through it to remove any static electricity caused by the powder friction. The thought of the 3 powder silos detonating was rather sobering
I learned something new
Just not wood. It happens in places where fine dust particulars are present. It could be a factory where they are milling wheat or flour, grain silos, or coal dust. Even in salt mines it's a danger. It's why if you see underground salt or coal mines, when digging aggregate, they'll use water to both cool the tools, but to keep the dust down to prevent ignition...
Uh, no. Powdered salt is neither combustible nor does it support combustion. It is far too stable to do that it is quite happy in the chemical state that it is. It is at lowest energy state most likely to cause the two substances that make it up are extremely reactive but they love each other too much and do not want to part after they combine. That's the lay man's version. I could give you the chemists version but I doubt that it would help. By the way I am a chemist.
I worked for years doing cleanup in a lumber mill. Trying to prevent exactly this. It never happened, but boy there were a lot of fires.
“This video should be viewed in conjunction with training in combustible wood dust hazard recognition and mitigation controls.”
Lol nah I’m here for the boom boom.
These videos are ASMR lol
watching your videos are so addictive, literally binge watching em all.
Why are these safety animations more entertaining than video game cut scenes?
Manufacturing and process plants have come a long way from I started. My experience working in Oil Refineries, Chemical Plants, etc, from very large companies to a few mom and pop comps. For one reason or another, I found the smaller companies lacked safety and process training. My opinion is OSHA focuses on the very large companies, I believe it’s the dollar amount they put on the fines.
No, the problem is the Republicans are continually defunding OSHA and as a result they have to pick and choose to investigate problems that will cause the greatest loss of life or structure. Go Tell it to the republicans in Congress they've been trying to do away with OSHA and the EPA for decades because it gets in the way of corporate profit. For the life of me I'll never understand why people hate regulations because without regulations you people who work in a factories would be no better off than they were in 1750 in England. Or people regularly maimed and killed with no recourse because labor was cheap and nobody gave a shit least of all the corporations profiting immensely from not having to provide any safety equipment or even Healthcare after the person was crippled. Do I sound bitter? You goddamn right I am.
in the 1930s a grain elevater exploded in my city from sparks from the train when it was being lifted and the hatch under it was opened, after that it was all automated
and over 15 people were never found, and over 80 burn victims and crushed bodies were recovered.
A co worker of mine was blowing saw dust off around his area and the air was pretty thick with very fine to regular saw dust. I was glad no one was allowed to smoke in the building
Damn, my first gig in a small cabinet shop. The Boss insisted we smoked 3 joints. Still here trying to be safe. Thanks
It's so weird to hear the 90s-esque narration combined with the frankly very well done animation.
Worked in a furniture factory in the late 90’s. People were allowed to smoke cigarettes in the factory.
There were vacuums at floor level wich could suck a bud into the whole system. Never understood it was allowed.
Amazing work guys, thank you for this great demo and explanation.
Worked in a wood shop for 2 years. This only needed to be explained to me once, but some employees (especially temps) never took dust clean up seriously, or did stuff like use an airhose to put more dust in the air.
I’ll make sure my old lady is aware of the hazards
Please do. Because if she goes to make a cup of coffee the creamer itself is combustible and the dust can create a massive explosion.
As someone who works in sawmills (I do maintenance on Chippers,Debarkers) while I guess his theory of ignition with the dust exc exc must be clean exc exc. I can PROMISE none of these mills clean at all and the cust is EEEEEVERYWHERE usually its not sparks from motors exc that cause it...the dust and atmosphere is usually to moist from the wood being processed. It's machines catching fire bearings exc or general human error via welding or cutting torches :D and the fires are brutal.
My favorite part was when the dust exploded, that was cool. Makes you think why Egyptian tombs don't explode given how dusty mummies are and how hot the deserts if Egypt can get. Imagine some Pharaoh just exploding from out the sand like a cannon randomly because of a dust explosion and all the locals thinking he had been awakened.
I used to work in a sawmil and I can tell you wood dust sucks up propane fumes so a build up of both is gonna be a bad time
What do you mean, sucks it up? How?
some coal mines and flour mills have the same problem
Dust collection is key. But that is a way to reduce the risk. The prevention is checking for wood dust in critical places and inspection of the electrical switchgear. Also manual cleaning has to be done often.
The use of a particle level monitor will help to determine the risk and ensure that levels of fine airborne dust are not a explosion hazard
Had an apprentice start blowing out electrical boxes with compressed air years ago. Thankfully someone stopped him before anything exploded, but when we looked over he was surrounded by a fresh cloud of dust and happily stirring up more with the air compressor. Proper training is also key, no one was provided training on dust mitigation until that day, now all new hires are.
Manual cleaning eh?
We’ve all heard the story of the new guy shoveling dropped grain around a silo with a metal head before they tackled him to the ground.
Surprised no mention of electrostatic ignition of dust. Can be caused simply by a buildup of charge in the air, and especially moving air -- such as in a dust collection system. Grounding of the ductwork can mitigate this.
@peteroleary9447
Indeed, have you ever vacuumed a really dusty floor in low humidity conditions? If the hose touches your arm it can snap you so good it will damn near make you drop the hose. All from the fine dust moving at high speed banging against the plastic hose on its way into the vacuum cleaner.
Maybe they should keep the humidity higher in these facilities
I once made a flame bomb from cooking flour. I got a coffee can and punched a hole in the bottom of it. I then put a little funnel into the hole and attached a small hose to the funnel. I put regular flour in the funnel, I then put kerosine soaked toilet paper in the bottom of the coffee can. I lit the paper on fire. At a distance I blew into the hose which made a cloud of flour. The burning paper ignited the flour then, BOOM!! As an electrician I installed many explosion proof light switches to prevent these kinds of explosions when I worked flour mill jobs. Just an ordinary thing like baking flour in certain conditions can be very dangerous.
I work the industrial side. Some people don't have a clue. As to what can happen when dust goes off. Grain dust is highly explosive, along with sugar. Grain dust usually has two explosions. First one sets off the settled dust. Game over. Me and two other people almost died. At the top of a grain mill. An electrician wired a motor brake wrong. He refused to listen to us. Drove off. When we turned power on.A fire ball blew up. We were lucky that day.
True story: a paper recycling plant once exploded because the paper chopper hit a staple, igniting the air full of chopped paper dust.
Clearly the safest solution it to just make all the wood shop buildings a vacuum and have all the employees in space suits. No explosions without Oxygen! Take *THAT* you combustible menace! ✊
Coffee creamer will ignite if it's atomized properly
38 years old. Just hearing about this now. Took woodshop every year in highschool. Just goes to show how our governmints dont care to education us.
Wow, I felt like I was back at work and taking one of the mandatory training classes! LOL.
I work in a commercial cabinet shop. Last year a spark or ember went into the dust collector. Nobody knew until it was an inferno because the collection system is outside. The fire department seemed to take forever. A few of us were trying to put it out with fire extinguishers and I personally think if we hadn't have done that it would have been devastating. We only had to replace the bags and do some painting. It was scary to say the least. People need to realize that an ember can sit for hours before igniting. We are lucky it happened early in the day and not after we shut down that afternoon. Keep your dust collector's clean. Empty them daily. It's no joke.
This should be made into a hardcore game
Me at 3 a.m. : “i wonder what i can watch to finally goto sleep”
Yt algorithm :” what? You wanna watch a safety video about wood dust? I gotchu fam”
I have enjoyed this clip. it was very interesting.
Worksafe BC makes many great videos.
I don't recall videos from the other provinces.
Seems like Alberta would have some.
I thought this was going to be security camera footage of actual explosions in factories.
The great algorithm strikes again. The last time I watched any wood working videos was last year. Thanks UA-cam...still, it was very informative.
Props to the graphic artist here; very detailed and clear!
This is the effect I think which did in the LUSITANIA. The torpedo detonating set off a coal dust explosion. The ship was reaching the end of its run and the coal bunkers were low leaving a lot of space for air. When the torpedo detonated, the remaining coal in the bunkers was thrown into the air creating coal dust clouds and ignited. The torpedo alone shouldn't have sunk the ship. The rifle bullets it was carrying likely didn't go off.
Where I was at, the first two hours of every week, every person (every shift) worked to clean and clear material, identify issues and the like. So, safe operation was literally everyone’s responsibility. In the end, at least 38 hours of solid work got done every week (per shift), but with fewer mechanical or production issues/stoppages and, yeah, having nothing explode was a definite plus. Seemed like a pretty good policy to me.
Actually saw the results of this in my hometown in Wyoming at what was the Louisiana Pacific sawmill. Destroyed the sawmill, and caused it to burn to the ground. The explosion rocked my house over a mile away from the sawmill, while my dad was on his lunch break from being a lumber grader. When he returned to help fight the fire (he was the sawmills fire chief as well) he said the heat was so intense that it was melting the metal siding of the building.
Two employees, a maintenance manager and production manager, were injured in the explosion. It started in the air compressor room that my dad had written up for exposed electrical wiring as he was also a safety inspector, arced and cause the explosion.
The maintenance manager and night shift production manager were on their way to fix the issue while everyone was on their lunch break. Sadly they weren't able to reach the breaker panel to shut it off before the explosion. Both men were blown off the stair well, the maintenance manager recurved third degree burns over a large portion of his body, several broken bones and was life flighted to Casper, Wyoming where he recovered. The production manager had several broken bones and a few other small burns and was taken to the hospital in Rawlins, Wyoming. Both men recovered from their injuries and it took nearly a year to rebuild the sawmill. The investigation proved the day shift maintenance manager had failed to remedy the situation, opting to make it night shifts problem (hence why the two night shift managers were going to fix the problem). The day shift maintenance manager and production manager were friends (it's a small town so no shock) were trying to cover it up and frame my dad, the night shift production manager and the night shift maintenance manager. It was discovered and both men were fired.
The nightshift maintenance manager eventually sued the company for an undisclosed amount and settled out of court. Corporate was planning on shutting down the mill anyway so in the end the sawmill closed, was put up for sale and ten years later a company from Colorado bought it and put it back into operation. They revamped the entire sawmill, spending millions. The sawmill is now Saratoga Forestry in Saratoga, Wyoming and produces beetle kill lumber that is highly sought after all over the US. They preform a vital service cutting down all the better kill timber, removing a massive fire hazard in the Medicine Bow National Forest.
This sawmill has been in operation on that sight for over 100 years. Four years ago a fire started in the log yard, caused by a discarded cigarette. The sawmill lost most of their timber and were down for several weeks only to have the yard pile up with timber. The owners said it will take them well over a hundred years to put a dent in the beetle kill timber in the forest. They have plans to expand production and employee 200 people in the community.tl the most they employed when it was LP was 120.
I worked in 3 wood shops where this was a present problem and no employees were ever told of the danger present in the shop I even worked at a sand lasting place where they use steel bead blasting where the machine was well out of maintenance and sprayed steel dust everywhere in the shop also super dangerous and no one was told of the dangers plus no protection for hazardous chemicals either acids and solvents etc
I worked in a sawmill when I was younger and operated the ripsaw and it would build up the very fine sawdust powder and just one handful and a lighter would make a very huge fireball. So cool but very dangerous!
Fuel-air explosives ❌
Woodchip-air explosives ✅
This is the most impressive, informational yet engaging and interesting enough to keep your attention, training video I've ever seen!
Damn you learn something new everyday.
The good thing here is that we learn things that keep us alive.
I remember hearing about one of the carpentry shops at BCIT almost blowing up from all the wood dust. A few weeks later a dust fire happened in the same shop. I had to go there from the other carpentry shop to pickup a skillsaw and a few drills. When i walked there everyone was coming out from the shop to hear there was a fire. Gave me an excuse for a smoke break since it was a bit of a walk.
Very educational
Thanks 😊.
I was 4 years old when I saw the chipboard + plywood factory disappear behind the smoke. Then there was a flame reaching the top of the 76 m high chimney. The chipboard factory had exploded and part of the power plant with wood dust storage. It was during lunch break, and in the chipboard factory was only one cleaning lady, who died. One man got very searious injuries.
One of our newbies once asked me "Is it normal for the saw to spark while you're using it?" after his first weekend alone.
Blade company had sent us blades of the wrong size so it was clipping the riving knife while it spun.
Goddamn we need better training.
The passion behind making the narration and animation are on par with MCU
I have just realised, that there is not just one type of dust. There is wood dust, plastic dust, etc. Sometimes, it sucks to not have English as my mother tongue language.
any type of sugar or flour is combustible too so this can happen in a food manufacturing facility too.
Your English is good!
I suspect most Anglophones are unaware of the composition of any dust - even flour.
Iron dust too i metal industry
@@arkan5000 That stuff scares me more than wood dust
Thanks for this. Very informative.
A friend of mine had a story of 5 guys partying in the motel room talking about dust explosions nobody believed it a guy went out in the hallway and got the maid's vacuum emptied it into a pillowcase shook it up lit the corner it exploded blue a guy out of the 2nd story window on the hood of a car
Like a smurf or one of the blue man group guys?
Nice recommendation
I’m suddenly very glad I don’t work in a wood manufacturing plant…
So your saying it takes ignition, oxygen, and fuel - sounds like the ‘Fire Triangle’.
Thank you UA-cam algorithm, very cool.
It’s the same effect you can get (make) with flour or custard powder. Think of it like the particles are so tiny you have, effectively, a flammable gas!
The problem with the sewing-machine-cabinet place I worked at in Orem, Utah was that everyone who worked where the saw dust was higher than ankle deep almost every work day is that ...
ALL the workers in that part of the factory were evaluated on the number of pieces they produced per day. There was no incentive to remove saw dust because doing so would take time that could have otherwise been used for production. I looked up the place ten minutes ago on the Internet, and I am glad to learn that it is out of business.
I don't know if that owner - operator changed his priorities or work location since I left there in 1994.
------
Here is another comment for another video about the same work place.
Under the owner - operator, ALL the foremen discouraged me from putting the lid on the container of methyl-ethyl-keytone -- surface cleaner -- after the amount needed (about every 30 minutes) was dispensed.
Not one person in the factory ever wore either a respirator or a carbon filtered face mask ... or even a paper dust mask. No personal protective equipment was ever made available.
One of the foremen told me it was an inefficient use of my time to put the lid on the storage container. The same foreman complained of chronic headaches which is a primary symptom of prolonged exposure to m.e.k.
I've worked in super dusty environments like that. Nothing ever happened but this scenario easily could have.
Scary stuff here. Very informative, great video.
It's like a fuel air bomb honestly. Reminds me of the daisy cutters from Vietnam
I don’t know why this was recommended to me but I enjoyed my time here
I worked for a company manufacturing wood panels for the construction industry, we had quite a few explosions which resulted in 1 death plus injuries. I left that company 14 years ago. The company overtime added various safety measures to reduce the risks from sensors to blast doors venting in a safe direction if a explosion occurred etc.
Why do I like watching these… I work a desk job
I've worked at all the mills around here and they are begging for this.
The horror movie soundtrack in combination with the sawmill setting is giving me a VIBE
The delivery on this was far more terrifying than any horror movie I've seen recently
At what level does this become a hazard? I work on a framing crew, all heavy smokers. (Ignition source), Ive recorded levels of 23mg/m3 (around work areas) on a busy day when were enclosed with a roof. Open to environmental is around 9mg. Now knowing about this danger i want to keep us safe. Please let me know if you know what concentration level becomes a hazrad. (Been framing for 7 years never ever heard about this even word of mouth)
This is really depend on the dust itself, humidity, particle sizes, etc. The way to know it is by doing the dust testing in the lab. I'd recommend to do good housekeeping or having dust collector system to reduce the risk. Lots of company never face these situation before because the chance is very low but once it happens. It took less then a second for explosion to take place as video. So better beware about it before happen.
You won’t generate this much dust framing a house.
A lumber mill creates crap tons more.
What about pulling some air in/out with a big fan?
Thank you again UA-cam algorithm for recommending this out of nowhere
Nobody likes watching these videos during training, but at home binging youtube videos these are awesome
'Anything that can burn will explode under the right conditions'
TM 31-210 'U.S. Army Improvised Explosives Handbook.'
Man, I am glad this is the video I watched at 3 am
I had this happen in a garage one time using a blower to clean up a bunch of dust and debree off of a floor. Got all dusty looking in a garage and when the furnace kicked on the entire garage lit up and blew the sliding door off hahah. Sounded like a bomb went off. I got so lucky that day only had a few singed hairs and ringing ears rest of the day.
This happens to millwright quiet a bit when using a cutting torch
wow I did not know any of this could happen. that is extremely dangerous if it ever did happen.
Glad i clicked on this, learn something new everyday.