(12a) NFPA 660 What you should know

NFPA 660, Standard for Combustible Dusts and Particulate Solids, became effective on December 6, 2024. This consolidation effort originally began in March 2011, when the Standards Council appointed a Correlating Committee to oversee the combustible dust standards and established a new Technical Committee to develop the fundamentals standard (NFPA 652). In March 2020, it was decided to take an additional step, consolidation of all the standards into a single document. The result is NFPA 660, a consolidation of the fundamentals standard and the industry-specific standards into a single document, providing safety requirements for all combustible dusts. The intention of this standard was to simplify compliance with NFPA dust handling standards. It is organized into fundamentals chapters, followed by individual chapters on each specific industry: agricultural and food, combustible metals, sulfur, wood processing and woodworking, and combustible dusts and particulate solids not otherwise specified.

The authors will bring their experiences working on multiple committees, conversations with committee members, and reviews of the standard with multiple stakeholders, to review the organization of the standard, provide a high-level summary of the requirements, and share major updates and changes from previous standards. The attendees will understand the base requirements, learn what changes will need to be made to existing programs already in compliance with previous standards, and know how to navigate the standard to find the information they need to assure safe operation.