From the Publishers Desk
departments
Independent Federal Watchdog Guards Transportation Safety
The expanding interest of the fire service in learning how to handle hazardous materials incidents is the result of an obvious fact of life. The transportation of hazardous materials by truck, railroad, ship, air or pipeline exposes every fire department to the possibility of having to handle an incident involving these materials.
Much of the credit for improving haz-mat transportation safety goes to the National Transportation Safety Board, the independent federal watchdog that reports directly to the President. A prime virtue of this board is that it regularly checks on whether its safety recommendations have been implemented.
A case in point is the NTSB action a couple of years ago that resulted in specification 112 and 114 railroad tank cars being retrofitted with headshields to resist punctures of tank heads, insulation to provide thermal protection in a fire, and shelf couplers to minimize punctures of tanks by couplings released in an accident. In a followup of this recommendation recently, the NTSB criticized the Materials Transportation Bureau of the Department of Transportation’s Research and Special Programs Administration and also the Federal Railroad Administration for allowing 66 specification 112A tank cars that carry certain flammable gases (anhydrous methylamines) to continue in use without headshields and thermal insulation until July 1,1982, a year and a half after the deadline for retrofitting other tank cars.
The NTSB recommended to both agencies that distinctive markings be applied to the 66 tank cars so that emergency personnel and railroad employees could recognize the hazards of the unretrofitted tank cars. Few are affected, but it takes only one tank car to be the fuse to a tragedy.
A milestone reached by the National Fire Academy that pleased us greatly was the accreditation of all 18 academy courses for a total of 50 credit hours by the American Council on Education. The accreditation makes it possible for academy alumni to transfer credits earned at Emmitsburg to other institutions of learning. The amazing thing is that this was accomplished in only two years.
Don’t forget, the 108th Conference of the International Association of Fire Chiefs in St. Louis Sept. 13-16. All indications are that the program and the exhibits will be well worth the trip. We’ll be there with other members of our staff, so stop at booth 135 and visit for a while.
