“It is your concern when your neighbor’s wall is on fire.” — Horace On November 26, 2025, a fire enveloped a high-rise apartment in the Wang Fuk Court complex that was undergoing significant renovation. The fire killed at least 159 people and took the Hong Kong fire department almost two full days to extinguish. Hong [...]
“The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.” — Carl Jung I’ve been taught, and have taught others, that you can’t take credit for a fire suppression system in a Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA). Why not? Because a fire suppression system doesn’t kick in until a fire [...]
“There is nothing that this age, from whatever standpoint we survey it, needs more, physically, intellectually, and morally, than thorough ventilation.” — John Ruskin I worked on a project once that required me to spend a lot of time in the control building. It was a substantial building with a kitchen and breakroom, several offices, [...]
“I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” — T.S. Elliot OSHA does not have a combustible dust regulation. Instead, it relies on a hodge-podge of regulations combined with the General Duty Clause. If someone wants to understand what OSHA expects in terms of combustible dusts, they must turn to OSHA’s Combustible Dust [...]
“The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor.” — George Orwell Yesterday afternoon, I was asked what I knew about the granary explosion that happened in Poland, killing two workers. I hadn’t heard of it, but my thoughts immediately went to NFPA 652, the [...]
“Don’t rely too much on labels, for too often they are fables.” — Charles Spurgeon Trick question: “What does PSM require for storage tank labeling?” Trick answer: “Nothing.” Helpful answer: “OSHA doesn’t require storage tank labeling under the Process Safety Management (PSM) standard, 29 CFR 1910.119. It does, however, have requirements for storage tank labeling [...]
