Most facilities that are handling/producing combustible dusts are now familiar with the term “Dust Hazard Analysis” or “DHA” and understand that it comes from a standard issued by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), nfpa.org. Furthermore, by now, many facilities subject to the requirements for conducting a DHA on their existing processes have had that completed. The most referred to standard is NFPA 652 – Standard on the Fundamentals of Combustible Dust. This set the requirement to have the DHA completed for existing processes by September 7, 2020. Now the commodity specific standard for agricultural and food: NFPA 61 – Standard for the Prevention of Fires and Dust Explosions in Agricultural and Food Processing Facilities did set a different date of January 1, 2022. This is the only commodity specific standard that did this; all other standards refer to the date in NFPA 652. There are a few other differences around the DHA requirements between NFPA 61 and 652. For the purposes of this article, we will just focus on the requirements in NFPA 652. Continue reading “Dust Hazard Analyses (DHAs) for New and Modified Processes”