Haz-Mat Commitment
DEPARTMENTS
Volunteers Corner
As interest in hazardous-materials response accelerates, fire service members should pause to understand how their performance affects themselves and others. Both individual firefighters and their departments have certain responsibilities.
On the personal and the organizational levels, the fire service exists to serve its community. The response offered must be well thought out. This means preincident planning to minimize injuries to people and damage to property and the environment. It also includes developing standard operating procedures for haz-mat response, evacuation, approach, containment, mitigation, and decontamination. All reasonable efforts should be taken to provide protection—but no unreasonable ones; unnecessary risks must be avoided, because the consequences can be devastating.
If a department considers establishing a haz-mat response team, it should evaluate whether the community’s money will be well spent in doing so. A proposed budget should be developed based on the generally high costs of protective clothing, containment items, and testing equipment, as well as the cost of training in highly technical skills that are only rarely used. This expenditure then needs to be compared to the demand for the service.
Smaller departments may be wise to join a county or regional response team. It would be better to have no team than to have an untrained, partially equipped group that creates a false sense of security and whose members are probably dangerous to each other because of skill degradation.
Even if a fire department decides to handle haz mats only at the level of first responders who identify the materials, isolate the area, and initiate evacuation, it owes its community and its members proper training and skill maintenance. The forthcoming National Fire Protection Association Standard on Hazardous Materials Response Personnel will list numerous job proficiencies to guide such training.
Firefighters will want to become familiar with this standard and become competent in the performance objectives outlined there, so they can fulfill their individual responsibilities to other company members, their families, and themselves.
This requires knowing enough not to overextend and get into trouble. It includes learning about the tactics to use and developing decision-making skills. Members need to know when to take no action and when it’s necessary to withdraw.
Many haz mats can be absorbed through the skin or eyes, inhaled, or ingested, causing serious injury or death even when present in just a few parts per million. Firefighters need to understand the magnitude of this risk: A part per million might best be visualized as a drop of vermouth in a tank car of gin, or an inch in 17 miles. Members shouldn’t expose themselves to the toxic risk this represents unless it’s necessary to rescue recoverable victims.
The appropriate personal protective gear is mandatory. If it’s not available, don’t approach the ha2ard area.
Thorough decontamination after the operation protects other company and family members as well as the person who wore the encapsulating suit. On exiting a contaminated area, the firefighter must be thoroughly decontaminated to prevent the spread of the dangerous material.
All of these are responsibilities implicit in the fire service’s role in hazmat response. They’re responsibilities of both commission and omission: Know how to do your job, and know the limits of your equipment, knowledge, and skills. Don’t assume responsibilities beyond those limits.
