MOUNT VERNON — Although Knox County has not experienced a major hazmat situation in approximately 10 years, fire officials across the county said they do have the training and equipment within their departments to deal with the smaller hazmat incidents they regularly face.
Hazmat includes any material that would be a danger to life or safety, or to the environment if released from its container without precautions. This includes poisons, petroleum products, radioactive or nuclear substances, biological agents and many chemicals.
According to Lt. Dave Miller of the Central Ohio Joint Fire District, who has been a hazmat technician for nine years and a specialist for four, handling hazmat situations is different than other areas of firefighting. Unlike a house fire or medical emergency, he said, hazmat situations must be approached slowly and carefully to protect first responders and the public.
“You run toward a fire, but you approach hazmat with extreme caution,” Miller said.
Figuring out what substances are involved, firefighters must then make decisions about what resources are needed to deal with the spill or leak, and how to proceed. Trucks and railroad cars carrying hazardous materials must display placards that identify what substance is on board.
If a wreck, leak or fire occurs, firefighters must use the placard to look up crucial information. Fire trucks in the county all carry handbooks that carry identification information about all hazardous materials carried on U.S. roads. Chemical information and firefighting strategies for different hazardous materials are included in the book.
“If the truck’s properly placarded, you can look up the number and find information on what protective clothing’s required, guidelines for evacuation, and what to fight the fire with,” Miller said.
All first responders in Ohio, including EMTs and police officers, as well as firefighters, receive four hours of hazmat awareness training.
“When you arrive you basically identify a hazardous problem, you get out, and you back people away,” Miller explained.
With eight additional hours of training, firefighters are qualified for hazmat operations. All firefighters with a Firefighter II card in Ohio are operations trained.
“They are trained to assist in a situation, and decontaminate technicians at an incident,” Miller said. “Technicians learn how to wear Class-A protective suits, go in, and deal with the situation. They deal with advanced methods of identifying and mitigating.”
Hazmat technicians receive a total of 40 hours of training, and can be trained for 40 additional hours as HazMat specialists. Miller trained as a specialist in anhydrous ammonia four years ago. Used in agriculture as a fertilizer, an anhydrous ammonia leak from a tank on a farm can create a poisonous cloud that can be deadly if inhaled.
The COJFD has sent several of its officers for extensive hazmat training. There are currently nine technicians on the department. Other departments across the county have at least two to three technicians.
But trained hazmat personnel are effective only if they have access to the equipment needed to contain a spill or leak. County departments maintain supplies of special absorbent pads that soak up fuel and other substances from a roadway or field.
Containers of absorbent powders can be poured onto the road around a motor vehicle accident to soak up any flammable liquids.
Some fire trucks in the county carry special foam that can be used to extinguish fuel fires when water will not do the job.
Hazmat situations in bodies of water require other resources. The Fredericktown Community Fire District carries an assortment of river booms in a trailer it uses in hazmat situations. The absorbent booms can be strung across a river or stream to catch fuel floating on the surface.
According to FCFD Capt. Duane Canter, the department has used the booms to surround a car that went into Knox Lake, to keep oil and gasoline from spreading into the lake. Assistant Chief Larry Schunke said that because the lake, the Kokosing Reservoir, portions of the Kokosing River and two gravel pits are all in the FCFD’s territory, it carries a large number of supplies to deal with water hazmat situations.
Chief Scott Mast said the department also has an adequate supply of materials to deal with the diesel and gasoline spills his department regularly encounters.
Poisons and fuel products are not the only hazmat risks. A tanker truck filled with milk that wrecked and leaked into a creek in St. Louisville was actually a hazmat situation because of the danger it posed to the environment. The milk could have killed off the plants and fish in the creek by eliminating the oxygen in the water.
Miller said a truck filled with 8,000 gallons of blueberries that spilled onto a Licking County roadway was a hazmat situation because the blueberries destroyed the turnout gear of the firefighters on the scene.
Miller stressed the importance of knowing what chemicals are involved when dealing with a hazmat situation. He said that delivery trucks carrying packages that could contain small amounts of multiple hazardous materials can pose unseen dangers.
“If they get in a wreck, you don’t know what’s in there. If the truck gets in a wreck and the containers broke and mixed, the truck could explode,” he said.
COJFD Chief Joe Porter said fire departments share resources and manpower during hazmat situations.
“Scott [Mast] knows what we’ve got available here, I know what he’s got, we all know what equipment Mount Vernon has,” he said. “The chiefs are doing a really good job now of working together, and sharing resources.
“It may say COJFD on the side, but it can be used anywhere in the county,” said Porter, pointing at a trailer his department is refitting with equipment.
Attending Monday’s special meeting where the decision was made to recommend the EMA sell the county’s hazmat truck and trailer, the chiefs agreed that while the county does not have the resources to maintain the equipment or operate a county hazmat team, cooperation between departments gives the county fire service greater capabilities.
Hazmat teams in Licking, Delaware and Richland counties are also available should a major hazmat emergency strike the county. Knox County fire officials are familiar with what other counties can offer in a hazmat crisis.
Miller said the extensive training he and other firefighters have completed in hazmat has not been wasted, even though the county does not have a hazmat team. He said he feels comfortable his training would help him know what mutual aid to request in a major hazmat situation.
“I may not have these resources,” he said, “but I know where to get them.”
Chiefs were asked at Monday’s meeting if they thought the county had the resources and trained personnel to continue dealing with the day-to-day hazmat situations facing local fire departments, without the aid of a countywide hazmat team, or county hazmat trailer.
All agreed they feel confident that by continuing to share resources, and keeping open lines of communication between their departments and hazmat teams outside the county, the loss of the trailer will not affect the level of hazmat protection in Knox County.
