Florida Volunteers Man Countywide Hazardous Materials Response Team
In rural St. Johns County in northeastern Florida, there is a well organized, highly trained, countywide hazardous materials response team.
Fifteen fire stations, staffed entirely by volunteers, provide fire protection for 608 square miles. None of the volunteers receives a dime for Fighting fires, yet 40 gladly do double duty as members of the St. Johns County Hazardous Materials Team.
Interstate Highway 96, one of the most heavily traveled highways in the country, bisects the county from north to south. For purposes of hazardous materials response, local fire chiefs cut the county in half from east to west as well, thus creating four quadrants for ease of administration. For each of the quadrants, there is a quadrant chief, selected from among the local fire chiefs, who is trained to take command at any hazardous materials incident in his quadrant. Chief Gregory A. Maitby of the Hastings Volunteer Fire Department is one of four quadrant chiefs. Also within each quadrant there are 10 fire fighters trained and equipped for hazardous materials response, or a total of 40 specially trained men in the county.
Member in each station
One or two team members are normally assigned to each of the 15 fire stations that cover the county. When the first responding unit answers any call, there is likely to be a hazardous materials team member trained in response on the scene immediately who will know what to do if the call proves to be a hazardous materials incident. Team members know the specialized resources available from each fire station and are able to evaluate the scene quite quickly and put out a call for the hazardous materials team.
We are attempting to specialize within each quadrant. For example, one quadrant has part of Interstate 95 plus a large agricultural area. Team members there tend to be involved mainly with insecticides, pesticides, anhydrous ammonia, ammonium nitrate, and similar materials. They are attempting to specialize in response to such types of incidents, as well as tanker truck fires.
Another quadrant might have predominantly acids and fiberglass. Training is keyed to such products. Acid suits are available and drills are more concerned with acids and acidrelated equipment. Rather than trying to keep personnel in each quadrant completely up to date with all possible commodities, efforts are made to specialize a bit on the main commodities found in each quadrant.
Instruction required
Before a fire fighter can become a member of the hazardous materials team, he must complete 100 hours of hazardous materials instruction. In addition, all team members are required to complete 20 hours of hazardous materials continuing education each year and must work a certain number of incidents to remain on the team. How do rural area fire service personnel manage to acquire that level of specialized hazardous materials training?
When Captain Ron Gore of the Jacksonville Fire Department Hazardous Materials Team formed Safety Systems, Inc., a couple of years ago to pass on techniques and methods developed in Jacksonville, one of his first classes was held in St. Johns County. About 200 persons attended that first class. Later, approximately 45 people attended a 40-hour course Gore put on at the Saint Augustine Technical Center.
Still later, Gore and some others established a hazardous materials training ground through the extensive cooperation of the Palatka Fire Department, and the St. Johns County team has used that facility extensively. Because of Gore and the scenarios available at the Palatka training ground, the St. Johns team training from the very beginning has been very much hands-on, extremely realistic, with great attention to actual methods under close-to-real conditions as differentiated from theory.
Facility being built
In the future, a lot of training will be provided through the Saint Augustine Technical Center. Doug Stewart is in charge of the Technical Center’s fire service training operation. The center is in the process of building a 20-acre foreground complete with hazardous materials incident scenarios and evolutions involving rail cars, tanker trucks, and possibly an airplane.
A great plus for the St. Johns team is that the members sometimes go to Jacksonville to live and work with the hazardous materials team of the Jacksonville Fire Department. Jacksonville allows them to live at the hazardous materials team’s station and work with their men. Because of Jacksonville’s level of commitment, St. Johns team members have had types and levels of experience that they never could have obtained in their rural area of 6300 people.
Hazardous materials team members in each quadrant have at their disposal a 1-ton, compartmentalized quick-response vehicle with foam, eductors, explosimeters, and similar specialized equipment, as well as a 300-gpm pump and 250 gallons of water. They rely on regular fire apparatus from the nearest fire station for hose, additional water and other fire suppression equipment.
Each quadrant normally maintains from 50 to 100 gallons of foam while an additional 200 gallons is available at the office of the county fire coordinator. Each quadrant also maintains a complete line of leak-stopping materials and a reference library.
Copy ideas for tools
The tools and patching equipment are patterned after those used by the Jacksonville Fire Department. There was not a large amount of money involved. A simple set of Vicegrips with a welded extension makes a great tool for clamping off busted hoselines under LPG gas trucks. The team makes its own bands, pads, gaskets and other materials from rubber scraps obtained through the courtesy of rubber companies in Jacksonville.
Chlorine A and B kits were obtained through the water department in St. Johns County. Instead of the kits being kept by the water department, they are kept on the team’s truck. The team does not have a chlorine C kit for tank cars, but it intends to make its own.
The quadrant chief is in command at any hazardous materials incident within his quadrant. As other quadrant chiefs and hazardous materials team members arrive, they work under the quadrant chief in whose quadrant the incident has occurred. If no quadrant chief is at the scene, County Fire Coordinator Bob Jones (who is also a member of the team) assumes command. On the other hand, when a quadrant chief is in command, the fire coordinator directs the operation of a command post so the quadrant chief can direct all his attention to bringing the incident under control.
Facilities preplanned
Each quadrant team is responsible for preplanning within its own area—for visiting facilities to identify materials that are manufactured, stored, transported, or used within the area. Each quadrant team develops a preplan book which contains information on each facility, including drawings to show locations and amounts of hazardous materials, water supplies, electrical and mechanical shutoffs, and similar information.
Once a month, the countywide team meets as a group to visit one of the industries in the county area. Even though an individual team member may be from another quadrant, when he is called to a specific facility for an actual incident, he is likely to have a good idea what the place looks like, where commodities are stored and in what quantity.
Being in the country, the St. Johns team has a water problem and often has to use tanker shuttles, locate wells, or utilize sources of open water, such gravel pits dug during the building of I-95. Each station in the county has one tanker holding 1000 to 2500 gallons.
Tankers at low cost
The Florida Forestry Service is in the process of building a number of tankers, and St. Johns County has been lucky enough to get several of these 2500-gallon trucks at a nominal cost of $6500. The tractors for these units were formerly used by the Florida Forestry service to haul bulldozers. The best ones are taken to the prison, where they are reconditioned, and a tank, compartments and a small pump are installed.
They are good units and fill a real need for a small volunteer fire department that never has much money. In St. Johns County, a tax rate of three-quarters of a mill brings in approximately $400,000 a year to be split among 15 fire stations.
Hazardous materials team members carry pagers. When there is a hazardous materials incident, a selective tone alerts them rather than all fire fighters. Whatever support units are needed also will be dispatched. The St. Johns County Dispatch Center dispatches for the team and all 15 stations.
Command post
The hazardous materials team always establishes a command post, but it does not try to dominate the scene. It seeks to control the incident and make use of all the available expertise of persons from other agencies.
The command post is operated like an air traffic control center. If there is a bunch of airplanes in the sky around an area and a couple decide to go off on their own, there are likely to be some crashes. The hazardous materials team lets its resource people know they are important to the team, yet the team controls the airspace by gathering all the information and expertise available to bring about the most effective operation possible. Everybody has his say and then the command post tries to make a good decision, using all the information it has been able to develop.
There are not many exotic materials in the area. The normal containment problems feature gasoline, LPG, chlorine and various agricultural chemicals. Since the area is definitely agricultural, the team is prepared to deal with anhydrous ammonia. Some of it is used in the area, but there has not been an anhydrous ammonia incident.
Team experience
There have been some ammonium nitrate and pesticide leaks. However, most of the men on the hazardous materials team in Maltby’s quadrant are also farmers. They handle such materials all the time and know what to do with them.
The team’s worst incident occurred when a tanker truck was filling aboveground tanks at a gasoline service station. The tank caught fire, blew up and set the tractor-trailer afire. There also have been numerous household LPG and chlorine leaks, as well as gasoline spills. The St. Johns County team averages five to six incidents a month, but only two or three major incidents a year.
The messiest incident occurred when a tanker driver on 1-95 went to sleep and rolled over, spilling 8000 gallons of waste oil. The highway had to be closed while sand was brought in and a vacuum truck came from Jacksonville.
Operating changes
There have been changes in the hazardous materials team’s operations. Members no longer drive right up on the scene. They are definitely more cautious now. At an LPG leak, team members stay back and send in just one or two men with breathing apparatus to make the size-up.
Before anybody gets near an incident, he has on complete turnout gear. Only one or two fire fighters make the initial size-up while the others lay back until they learn exactly what they are up against.
Change in attitude
An important change has to do with attitude. Fire suppression critiques with other stations used to stress what was done right—how well the job was done. At hazardous materials critiques what was done correctly may be mentioned, but the stress is on what the team did wrong, how badly it may have fouled up. Hazardous materials team members highlight what they did wrong so they and others can learn from their mistakes and carelessness.
The Jacksonville Fire Department has one of the most experienced response teams in the country, yet it repeatedly shares its mistakes with other teams.
Trainees remember that no one has all the answers, and they really try to learn from mistakes.
