Hazardous Materials Incidents Call for Use of Many Agencies
departments
The Volunteers Corner
The most important—and probably the most difficult—thing you have to learn about handling a hazardous materials incident is that a fire department cannot handle it alone.
We routinely suppress all types of structural fires with various numbers of fire companies—sometimes with the use of mutual aid companies—and therefore we give little thought to other agencies except for the police, who primarily handle traffic and crowd control. But at a serious hazardous materials incident, the fire service has neither the sophisticated technical knowledge nor the specialized equipment that may be required to resolve the problem. This is the time to realize that we need ail the outside help we can get to minimize the effect of the incident.
Now—before an incident occurs—is the time to get to know people outside the fire service who may become involved in a hazardous materials incident in your area or who can provide technical advice. Establish liaison with the responsible persons at hazardous materials manufacturing, storage and transportation facilities in your area. Get to know them before an incident occurs and have them give you the names of others on their staffs you can contact when they are not available.
Aid in planning: Responsible people at manufacturing, storage and transportation facilities can assist you in your pre-incident planning and arrange for familiarization tours of their facilities by fire companies. There is a lot to learn in such walk-throughs and the more who take the tour, the more likely at least one fire fighter will remember the location of a shutoff valve that is critical to control of an incident.
If a highway tanker or a railroad tank car carrying a hazardous material develops a leak that cannot be plugged, where do you get tankers to off-load the gas or liquid? Trucking companies that specialize in hauling hazardous materials will provide assistance—including off-loading—at an incident involving a tanker owned by another company because some day the situation may be reversed and they may need the help of another company. There may be such a transporter in your backyard or you may have to go 100 miles or more to find one. The important thing is that you locate such a company and learn what assistance it can provide.
Hazardous liquid spills call for dikes to contain the hazard. Where do you get the sand and equipment to make a dike? Find out from your local and state highway departments and local contractors what equipment is available and where you can get the sand or earth needed for diking.
Recovery of spill: Once the liquid has been contained, how do you remove it safely? Throughout the country, there are recovery companies that specialize in resolving such a problem. Again, talk with the responsible people in such companies and find out what their capabilities are. Then make sure your dispatcher has the phone number of each recovery company on file.
Hazardous materials incidents inevitably bring in people from your state environmental protection agency. The Coast Guard also has extensive responsibilities for hazardous material spills not only along the seacoast, but also along rivers and even small tributaries to rivers. Talk with the officials of these agencies now instead of arguing with them at a hazardous materials incident.
By working with these agencies, a fire department can operate so as to minimize the cleanup problem while at the same time effectively controlling the incident.
Does your state or a fire department within reasonable distance have a hazardous materials response team that could assist you? If there is such a team, find out what assistance it can provide and make sure your dispatchers know how to contact the team.
Binoculars needed: The first-in company—or chief officer—has the responsibility of identifying the hazardous material. At a transportation incident, placards on the highway truck or railroad car will give you a general idea of the nature of the hazard, but in some cases, it may be a fatal mistake to go close enough to read the placard. Binoculars should be carried on apparatus so that the general hazard can be determined at a distance.
The material involved, the name of the transporter, the identification number of the trailer or railroad car, and—if possible—the name of the shipper should be determined. This basic information will be useful when calling CHEMTREC, the 24-hour hazardous materials information agency operated by the Manufacturing Chemists Association. The CHEMTREC toll-free phone number is 800-424-9300 in 48 states. In Alaska and Hawaii, phone 202-483-7616. In the District of Columbia, the number is 483-7616. The CHEMTREC responder will provide basic information and, according to the need, contact the transportation company and shipper or manufacturer. Some manufacturers or manufacturers associations have response teams that will go to an incident if necessary.
Basic to the success of handling a hazardous materials incident is the establishment of a command post. This is vital to the coordination of the assisting agencies and sources of information we have mentioned. The command post may be set up near the incident or some distance away—possibly at fire department headquarters, depending on the situation.
In any event only by controlling operations from a command post can the efforts of the many assisting agencies be coordinated to the greatest advantage. The fire department cannot do it alone.
