A fire occurred in a powder handling facility handling highly ignition sensitive organic powders used as antioxidants for The plastics industry. Fortunately little damage was done and no one was injured. The incident was investigated and the facts examined with conclusions made as to the possible causes. The incident may have been prevented had production management set in place a set of regular controls, carried out by the process operators themselves, to ensure integrity of equipment designed to ensure the safety of the system. This article describes the basics of such a Safety Maintenance and Control (SAMACO) system. (C) 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 28: 267-274, 2009