Industrial fires and explosions investigated by the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, 1998 to 2026

Registry of U.S. Chemical Safety Board incident investigations, 1998 to 2026

Checked quarterly and after each CSB recommendation Board vote. Last checked 2026-10-27. Entries are neutral records of public data; each links to its source record.

What the registry counts: 140 CSB pages, 127 incident investigations

Every investigation the CSB lists on its completed and current pages was opened, read and coded. Safety studies and bulletins are kept in the registry file but left out of the incident counts.

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is an independent federal agency, authorized by the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, that became operational in January 1998 (CSB history). It investigates chemical incidents to find their cause and issues recommendations; it does not issue fines or citations (CSB mission).

On October 27, 2026, the CSB website listed 134 completed and 6 current investigations (completed list, current list). Thirteen of those 140 pages are safety studies or bulletins, such as the 2006 combustible dust study, so the registry counts 127 incident investigations: 121 with a final report and 6 ongoing.

Fire or explosion investigation: An investigation whose CSB title or accident type names a fire, explosion, flash fire, blowout or eruption. Toxic releases and structural failures without one of these words are counted separately.

Hazard class: FLS coding of CSB's own accident type, title, description and recommendation text into six classes: combustible dust, hot work ignition, flammable gas, vapor or liquid, reactive chemical or energetic material, other process fire, explosion or failure, and toxic or asphyxiant release.

Deaths and injuries stated by CSB: The numbers written on the CSB investigation page, or in the CSB final report for 13 pages that give none. Injuries include people CSB says were injured, hospitalized or treated. They are minimums, because 39 investigations give no injury number.

Industrial fires and explosions investigated by CSB, by year of incident

The number of incidents CSB investigated per incident year ranged from 0 (2000) to 10 (2003). Activity peaked for incidents from 2003 to 2007, at 6.4 a year, and has run at 3.4 to 4.0 a year since 2013.

The busiest incident year was 2003, with 10 investigations, including three combustible dust explosions in Kinston, North Carolina, Corbin, Kentucky, and Huntington, Indiana. No incident from 2000 was investigated. From 2003 to 2007, CSB opened 32 investigations, 6.4 a year; from 2013 to 2017 it opened 17, 3.4 a year.

Fires and explosions dominate every period. Of the 16 investigations with incident dates from 2023 to October 2026, 9 were fires or explosions, and those 16 investigations carry 41 stated deaths, driven by the 16 deaths at Accurate Energetic Systems in Tennessee in 2025 and the 11 at Nippon Dynawave in Washington in 2026 (CSB, AES; CSB, Nippon Dynawave).

The yearly count reflects CSB's resources and selection as much as the number of incidents. CSB investigates a small share of serious events, so a falling count is not evidence of fewer industrial fires.

Which hazards CSB investigated, and which killed the most people

Flammable gas, vapor and liquid fires make up 30.7% of investigations and 34.3% of deaths. Combustible dust is a small class, 7.1% of investigations, but holds 16.2% of deaths.

Flammable gas, vapor or liquid releases that ignited are the largest class: 39 investigations, 93 deaths, including the 2005 BP Texas City refinery explosion, where CSB says 15 workers were killed and 180 injured (CSB, BP Texas City).

Reactive chemical and energetic material incidents (runaway reactions, decomposition, explosives and ammonium nitrate) number 23 and account for 61 deaths. The class includes the 2013 West Fertilizer explosion, which CSB says killed 12 volunteer firefighters and 2 members of the public (CSB, West Fertilizer).

Toxic and asphyxiant releases are 25 investigations with 28 deaths but the most stated injuries, 440, because single releases sent large numbers of residents for treatment, such as 154 people in the 2004 MFG Chemical release in Dalton, Georgia, which this registry codes as reactive, and 130 in the 2010 Millard ammonia release in Alabama.

Deaths are concentrated: the 10 deadliest investigations account for 107 of 271 stated deaths (39.5%).

Combustible dust and hot work: the causes CSB keeps returning to

Dust and hot work are two narrow causes that CSB has investigated again and again: 18 investigations and 59 deaths, 25.7% of all fire and explosion deaths in the registry.

CSB investigated 9 combustible dust explosions from 2003 to 2025, at sugar, corn milling, metal, plastics, fiberglass insulation, ink and biofuel facilities. They killed 44 people, 4.89 per investigation. The deadliest was Imperial Sugar in Port Wentworth, Georgia, in 2008: 14 deaths and 38 injured, according to the investigation description (CSB, Imperial Sugar). The 2017 Didion Milling explosion in Cambria, Wisconsin, killed 5 of 19 employees on shift and injured the other 14 (CSB, Didion). An investigation into 3 deaths at Horizon Biofuels in Fremont, Nebraska, in July 2025 is ongoing.

CSB's 2006 dust hazard study identified 281 combustible dust incidents between 1980 and 2005 that killed 119 workers and injured 718 (CSB news release, November 9, 2006). That study asked OSHA for a combustible dust standard for general industry. The request was closed as superseded on 2023-11-30 and replaced by Didion recommendation 2017-7-I-WI-R10, which asks OSHA to promulgate a standard for all industries that handle combustible dust, based on NFPA standards including NFPA 652. It was open, awaiting response, on September 16, 2026 (CSB recommendation data).

Hot work (welding, cutting and similar spark-producing work) ignited 9 fires and explosions that CSB investigated between 2001 and 2020, with 15 deaths and at least 47 injuries. Six of the nine involved flammable vapor in or near a tank, including Packaging Corporation of America in Tomahawk, Wisconsin (2008, 3 deaths) and DeRidder, Louisiana (2017, 3 contractors killed, 7 injured) (CSB, PCA DeRidder). The fire prevention standard for hot work is NFPA 51B; edition in force depends on the code adopted by your state.

Facilities that handle combustible dust or schedule hot work near tanks rely on the protection systems covered in the FLS guides to special hazard suppression and fire sprinkler inspections. Those guides describe inspection practice; they are not findings of the CSB.

Where the investigated incidents happened, by state and industry

Investigations cluster on the Gulf Coast: Texas has 22, Louisiana 9. Chemical manufacturing is a third of all investigations.

Incidents investigated by CSB occurred in 38 states, territories or offshore areas. Texas accounts for 17.3% of investigations and Texas plus Louisiana 24.4%, close to their share of accidental release reports (see below). Georgia and Tennessee each carry 23 stated deaths; for Tennessee, 16 come from one ongoing investigation.

Chemical manufacturing has 42 investigations (49 deaths) and petroleum refining 19 (33 deaths). Food, beverage and agriculture has only 10 investigations but 34 deaths, mostly from dust explosions and a liquid nitrogen release, and 28 open recommendations. Several incidents occurred at storage and distribution sites; FLS covers fire protection in storage buildings in its warehouse guide.

How long a CSB investigation takes

The median completed investigation took 1.65 years from incident to final report. The median rose above 2.4 years for incidents from 2010 to 2019 and has since come down to 1.83 years.

Across 121 completed incident investigations, the mean was 2.11 years and 23 (19.0%) took more than 3 years. The longest was Didion Milling: incident on May 31, 2017, final report on December 6, 2023, 6.52 years later. Hazard classes differ little in median time: combustible dust 1.95 years, hot work 1.2 years.

Report dates are as CSB shows them. For CITGO Corpus Christi (2009), Silver Eagle (2009) and Horsehead (2010), the date shown is an urgent recommendation, technical report or analysis, and CSB formally closed the files later, so their true elapsed time is longer.

CSB recommendations still open after industrial fires and explosions

129 of 1,061 recommendations were open on September 16, 2026. Federal agencies and standards bodies have the highest open shares; most open items are recent.

Recommendations from fire and explosion investigations number 804, of which 95 (11.8%) were open. By recipient: OSHA 22 of 60 open (36.7%), EPA 9 of 33 (27.3%), NFPA 7 of 27 (25.9%), the American Petroleum Institute 7 of 56 (12.5%), and companies and their facilities 57 of 485 (11.8%) (CSB recommendation data).

Most open recommendations are young: 104 of 129 (80.6%) were issued in 2023 or later, and only 12 before 2016. The oldest open recommendation, 2001-1-H-XX-R3, was issued to EPA on 2002-10-08 and asks it to revise 40 CFR 68 to cover catastrophic reactive hazards.

CSB statuses mean specific things. Open – Unacceptable Response/No Response Received is used when no response arrives within 270 days of issuance or the recipient disagrees with the need; 11 recommendations held that status. Only a Board vote closes a recommendation (CSB recommendations FAQ).

Accidental releases reported to CSB since 2020

Since the 40 CFR Part 1604 reporting rule took effect on March 23, 2020, owners and operators have reported 674 releases. CSB investigated a small fraction.

The rule requires owners or operators to report an accidental release that causes a death, serious injury or substantial property damage within 8 hours (final rule). CSB revises its list quarterly (CSB reporting rule data). Full years 2021 to 2025 averaged 111.2 reports a year. Texas (153) and Louisiana (91) account for 36.2% of reports.

For incident years 2021 to 2025, CSB opened 17 incident investigations against 556 reported releases, about 3.1 investigations per 100 reports. The list flags events, not people: 106 reports carry a fatality flag, but the file does not give the number of deaths, and it does not classify events as fires, explosions or toxic releases.

The registry file: every CSB investigation, row by row

The downloadable registry has one row per CSB page with dates, place, coded hazard, industry, casualties, status and recommendation counts.

Each row records the facility or company as CSB names it, the city and state, the incident date, event type, hazard class, CSB's own accident type, industry, deaths and injuries as CSB states them, final report date, years from incident to report, total and open recommendations on September 16, 2026, and the CSB page URL. Thirteen safety studies and bulletins are included and marked.

Counts and distributions

Download the calculations (CSV)

Key findings

1. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board has opened 127 incident investigations since it became operational in January 1998; 6 were still ongoing on October 27, 2026.^[1][2][9]
2. 96 of 127 CSB incident investigations (1998 to 2026, United States) were fires or explosions, 75.6% of the total.^[1][2]
3. CSB investigation pages state 271 deaths across all 127 incident investigations, 1998 to 2026; 74 investigations involved at least one death.^[1][2]
4. Fires and explosions account for 230 of those 271 deaths (84.9%).^[1]
5. Combustible dust explosions: 9 CSB investigations, 44 deaths, 4.89 deaths per investigation, the highest of any hazard class (all classes: 2.13).^[1][12][16]
6. Hot work ignited 9 of the fires and explosions CSB investigated between 2001 and 2020, killing 15 people; the 2017 Packaging Corporation of America explosion in DeRidder, Louisiana, killed 3 contractors and injured 7.^[1][17]
7. The 10 deadliest CSB investigations account for 107 deaths, 39.5% of all deaths CSB states (1998 to 2026).^{[1][13][14][15]}
8. Texas had 22 CSB incident investigations and 50 stated deaths from 1998 to 2026, more than any other state.^[1]
9. Median time from incident to CSB final report was 1.65 years across 121 completed incident investigations; it rose from 1.39 years for 2005 to 2009 incidents to 2.57 years for 2015 to 2019 incidents.^[1]
10. On September 16, 2026, 129 of 1,061 CSB recommendations were open (12.2%).^[3]
11. OSHA had 22 of its 60 CSB recommendations open on September 16, 2026 (36.7%), the most of any single recipient; EPA had 9 of 33 open.^[4]
12. CSB first asked OSHA for a combustible dust standard in November 2006; that request was closed as superseded on 2023-11-30 and replaced by recommendation 2017-7-I-WI-R10 from the Didion Milling report, still open on September 16, 2026.^[4][12][16]
13. 104 of the 129 open recommendations (80.6%) were issued in 2023 or later; the oldest open one, to EPA on reactive hazards, dates from 2002-10-08.^[4]
14. Owners and operators reported 674 accidental releases to CSB between April 10, 2020, and August 29, 2026; 106 (15.7%) were flagged with a fatality and 366 with a serious injury.^[7][6]

Executive summary

• The CSB lists 140 investigation pages; 127 are incident investigations (121 completed, 6 ongoing) and 13 are safety studies or bulletins.
• 96 of the 127 incident investigations (75.6%) were fires or explosions, and they hold 230 of the 271 deaths CSB states (84.9%).
• Flammable gas, vapor or liquid is the largest hazard class with 39 investigations and 93 deaths; combustible dust is the deadliest per case at 4.89 deaths per investigation.
• Combustible dust (9 investigations, 44 deaths) and hot work (9 investigations, 15 deaths) together account for 18.8% of fire and explosion investigations and 25.7% of their deaths.
• Texas has 22 investigations (17.3%); Texas and Louisiana together have 24.4%. Chemical manufacturing is the largest industry with 42 investigations.
• The median CSB investigation took 1.65 years from incident to final report; 23 of 121 took more than 3 years, and the longest, Didion Milling, took 6.52 years.
• On September 16, 2026, 129 of 1,061 CSB recommendations were open (12.2%); OSHA had 22 of its 60 open (36.7%), companies 57 of 485 (11.8%).
• Owners and operators reported 674 accidental releases to CSB from April 2020 through August 2026; 106 carried a fatality flag.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides, services and research

• Special hazard suppression inspection
• Warehouse fire safety requirements
• Fire sprinkler inspection requirements
• Lithium-Ion Battery Fires Statistics
• Most Common Fire Code Violations
• Nursing Home Fire Safety Deficiencies
• Workplace Fire Deaths in the U.S.

Methodology

Selection: every item on the CSB completed investigations list (20 pages) and current investigations list, scraped on 2026-10-27. Each of the 140 investigation pages was downloaded and saved unmodified in raw/pages/. Pages that CSB labels as safety studies or bulletins, or that cover a hazard across many sites, are kept in the registry but excluded from incident counts (13 pages).

Fields: incident date, final report date, CSB accident type and recommendation statistics come from fields on each page. Deaths and injuries come from the page's accident description, its news headlines or safety video text. For 13 investigations whose page gives no casualty figures, the number comes from the CSB final report PDF (saved in raw/reports/). Where CSB gives no number for injuries (for example dozens or multiple), the field is left blank and totals are minimums. Where neither the page nor report mentions deaths, deaths are recorded as 0.

Coding: event type (fire or explosion, toxic or asphyxiant release, structural or pressure failure) follows the words in CSB's title and accident type. Hazard class follows CSB's accident type first (combustible dust, hot work, reactive incident, release), then the page text: a class is assigned only when the page names the material or mechanism. Fires whose fuel the page does not name go to other process fire, explosion or failure. Industry is coded from CSB's facility description.

Recommendations: all 1,061 rows of CSB's status spreadsheet (data as of the September 16, 2026, Board vote) were linked to investigations by recommendation number and folder title; totals per investigation match the counts on every CSB page. Recipient type is CSB's own field.

Conflicts: where a CSB page gives two figures (Imperial Sugar: 38 injured in the description, 36 in a video teaser), the accident description is used and the conflict is logged. Where a page summary and a CSB video description differ (Watson Grinding: two workers, or two workers and a nearby resident), the larger, more specific CSB statement is used.

Accidental release reports: the CSB list of events reported under 40 CFR Part 1604 (file dated September 1, 2026) was counted by year, state and consequence flag. It is self-reported, revised quarterly, and does not code fire or explosion.

Limitations: CSB investigates a selection of incidents, so these counts describe CSB's caseload, not all industrial fires. Casualty counts are as CSB states them and may differ from other agencies. Hazard and industry codes are FLS judgments documented in scripts/coding.py. Not legal or safety-engineering advice; standards and code editions in force depend on what your state has adopted.

Last updated 2026-10-27. Registry check frequency: after each CSB recommendation Board vote and quarterly for new investigations.

This report presents published data with its limitations. It is not legal, engineering, financial or investment advice. Requirements depend on the code edition your state and local fire marshal have adopted; confirm with your authority having jurisdiction.

Sources, ranked by quality

Tier 1: primary and official sources (29)

• [1] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Completed Investigations (all list pages). 1998 to 2026. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [2] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Current Investigations. 2025 to 2026. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [3] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Recommendations Statistics (data as of the September 16, 2026, Board vote). 1998 to 2026-09-16. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [4] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). All recommendation status update spreadsheet, 9-16-2026 (xlsx). 1998 to 2026-09-16. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [5] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Recommendations: Frequently Asked Questions (status definitions). current. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [6] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Incident Reporting Rule Submission Information and Data. 2020 to 2026. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [7] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Accidental Release Events list, September 1, 2026 (xlsx). 2020-04-10 to 2026-08-29. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [8] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Final rule: Accidental Release Reporting, 40 CFR Part 1604 (Federal Register, February 21, 2020). 2020. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [9] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). History: About the CSB. 1990 to present. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [10] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Mission: About the CSB. current. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [11] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). News release: CSB Considers Final Report on Combustible Dust Hazards (November 9, 2006). 1980 to 2005. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [12] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Imperial Sugar Company Dust Explosion and Fire (investigation page). 2008 to 2026. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [13] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). BP America (Texas City) Refinery Explosion (investigation page). 2005 to 2026. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [14] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). West Fertilizer Explosion and Fire (investigation page). 2013 to 2026. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [15] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Accurate Energetic Systems Fatal Explosion (investigation page). 2025 to 2026. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [16] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Didion Milling Company Explosion and Fire (investigation page). 2017 to 2026. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [17] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Packaging Corporation of America Hot Work Explosion (investigation page). 2017 to 2026. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [18] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Watson Grinding Fatal Explosion and Fire (investigation page). 2020 to 2026. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [19] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Nippon Dynawave Packaging Company Fatal Tank Collapse (investigation page). 2026. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [20] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Shell Polymers Furnace Explosion and Fire, final investigation report (September 2026). 2025 to 2026. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [21] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Caribbean Petroleum (CAPECO) final investigation report (October 2015). 2009 to 2015. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [22] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Chevron Richmond Refinery final investigation report (January 2015). 2012 to 2015. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [23] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Arkema Crosby executive summary (May 2018). 2017 to 2018. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [24] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Combustible Dust Hazard Investigation (study page). 2004 to 2006. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [25] National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). NFPA 652 standard development page. current. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [26] National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). NFPA 51B standard development page. current. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [27] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Loy Lange Box Company Pressure Vessel Explosion (investigation page). 2017 to 2026. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [28] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). United States Steel Corporation Clairton Plant Coke Oven Explosion (investigation page). 2025 to 2026. Accessed 2026-10-27.
• [29] U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB). Givaudan Sense Colour Explosion (investigation page). 2024 to 2026. Accessed 2026-10-27.