Making Plans for Handling Hazardous Material Incidents
departments
The Volunteers Corner
When you arrive at a hazardous material incident, the best thing you can do is to stop—and think!
Even though a life may be in danger, it is vital that you think before you act. Rash action on your part could endanger more lives—the lives of the responding fire fighters. Remember, your objective in responding to a hazardous material incident is to resolve the problem as expeditiously as possible and not to expand the problem by becoming part of it.
As hazardous material incidents become more frequent, it is important that binoculars be carried by at least one unit in the firstalarm response, placards have to be read to be of any use, and it is sheer stupidity to walk close enough to read a placard when it can be read at a safer distance with binoculars. A pair of 7X50 binoculars is a good choice because the 7-power is the greatest that can be used without a support and the lens size admits adequate light under most conditions.
Full turnout gear: As in every other response, every fire fighter must wear complete turnout gear—helmet, coat, boots, and bunker pants when appropriate. Before entering a suspicious atmosphere—before you know that it is contaminated—earflaps should be over the ears, collars should be turned up and boots should be fully extended up the legs. Provide all the protection you can against skin absorption of toxic materials.
It is most important that everyone entering the suspicious area wear self-contained breathing apparatus. You all know that SCBAs must be worn in a toxic atmosphere, and you cannot operate on the possibility that a suspicious atmosphere is not in reality toxic. Wear SCBAs from the start.
Spare air cylinders should be kept at a selected point upwind, clear of the vapor cloud so that fire fighters can change their depleted cylinders in an uncontaminated atmosphere. You will have enough problems without complicating this part of the operation. As soon as possible, gather all spare air cylinders at one spot with an officer assigned to this breathing air station.
Know your hazards: Take advantage of the percentages. The hazardous material incident you will most likely encounter will involve a material that is either stored or commonly transported in your response area.
Identify the stored hazardous materials by inspecting the facilities that use or sell them. When you walk through an industrial plant or a storage facility on an inspection, ask questions about the contents of every storage container you see, whether it is aboveground or underground.
A little time spent looking at trucks on the main highways in your area and railroad trains passing through your community can lead to the development of a list of the more common hazardous materials transported. It is true that many vehicles will have no more than a haz-mat placard, but many tank trucks and railroad tank cars carry the name of the product carried in large letters. A few questions at a truck stop can identify other products.
Plan for response: Just as you develop pre-fire plans for buildings, you should have plans for likely hazardous incident responses. There are too many hazardous materials to keep an extensive file on all of them. However, you can develop a file of detailed information on the materials commonly stored or transported in your area.
The file should have information on the toxicity, flammability and stability (tendency to explode) of the hazardous materials in your area. The file also should contain detailed information on how to fight a fire involving specific gases and chemicals.
Talk with the most knowledgeable person you can find at industrial plants and storage facilities. Learn how they handle the product routinely and what they recommend be done in an emergency. If there is a truck depot within a reasonable distance that handles haz-mat shipments, talk with the supervisor and ask him to provide emergency information on the hazardous products his trucks carry. Truck companies that handle large amounts of hazardous materials have safety supervisors who train drivers to handle their cargoes safely. It is possible that fire fighters in your department can get some of this training, either by attending classes with truck drivers or by setting up a special training session in your department.
If a railroad passes through your community, find out what training can be provided by the railroad. Some lines offer training sessions for fire departments along their right of way.
Consider your resources: With knowledge gained in this manner, develop your plans to handle incidents for the most common hazardous materials in your area. Most of all, these plans should be realistic. Avoid putting anything in your plan that is beyond the resources you have.
If you can’t provide an adequate amount of water to cool a storage tank, don’t base your incident plan on cooling that tank. If containing a leak from a tanker carrying a corrosive is a likely problem, don’t plan to establish a sand dike unless you can be sure of obtaining sand in adequate quantities and in a reasonable time. Diverting the flow of corrosive to a natural low area might have to be your best alternative.
Remember, you can do only what your resources in personnel and equipment will allow you to do. Develop your plans within these limitations and then make enough copies so they will be available when needed. Copies should be kept in the communications room, in chiefs’ cars and in stations. Firstdue area plans can be kept on apparatus.
