Haz Mat

The Hazardous Materials Team is responsible for mitigating and stabilizing any hazardous material incident within the Orland Fire District’s response area. We have a supply of equipment, including hazardous gas meters, radiation detectors, and leak kits. Our Hazardous Materials Team is responsible for a large variety of possible issues involving all types of dangerous materials. There are underground pipelines, industrial chemicals, and radiological medical equipment within our response area. We also have a large amount of vehicle traffic in the Orland area involving hazardous materials. The past year was quite a challenging one due to the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although we were limited with the amount of in-person training, we could attend, we still found alternatives to help the team progress further. Members worked on what we considered to be our strategic goals for the Team. Identifying these items allowed us to enhance our training objectives. We also had members participate in a variety of online training classes held throughout the year. The class topics ranged from radiological emergencies, to dealing with anhydrous ammonia incidents. We continued our training with various isolation devices, such as the IsoPod and PAPR respiratory device. These devices allowed us to deal with a significant surge of COVID patients all at once, should the need have arisen. The isolation devices will now remain a part of our regular equipment inventory. We are one of the only specialty teams in the area with these specialized pieces of equipment. This enables us to provide a higher level of service to our citizens. The team also purchased new and updated leak plug kits. These leak plug kits will help us mitigate leaks in various styles of containers and pipes. We also started the process of testing a new type of four gas meter. The four gas meter is carried on every front line fire apparatus and helps us investigate various kinds of gas leaks or odor investigations. With the ever-changing advances in technology, we felt the need to start looking into updating this critical piece of equipment. One of the most significant accomplishments we achieved was switching over to a new style of hazardous materials foam. Due to recently passed legislation, most of the foam we carried had to be phased out because an ingredient was discovered to be cancerous. Battalion Chief Moore was instrumental in the process of researching the most feasible and financially sound option for a replacement foam that could be used on all our apparatus.

HazMat

Lieutenant Steven Prohaska

Team members donned fully encapsulated hazardous material suits to mitigate a simulated leaking chlorine tank. They used what we refer to as an “A” kit to stop the leak in the tank

Our involvement in 2021 with the Southwest Hazardous Material Response Team (SWHMRT) is ongoing. The SWHMRT is a regional team comprised of members from different MABAS divisions. Should we need to request additional assistance within our District, the SWHMRT would be activated and respond. We have had a handful of senior members who were part of the team retire in the past year. This allowed us to add some of our younger OFPD members to the team. These members will start their monthly training with the SWHMRT in February. We have seen a lot of personnel changes over the past couple of years due to retirements. These experienced members were an instrumental component of our Hazardous Materials Team. They helped mold the team into what it is today.

 Overpressure rupture, explosion, overheat, other 2  Overpressure rupture of steam boiler 1  Overpressure rupture from air or gas, other 1

 Chemical reaction rupture of process vessel 1  Fireworks explosion (no fire) 1  Hazardous condition, other 1  Combustible/flammable gas/liquid condition, other 3  Gasoline or other flammable liquid spill 4  Inside Gas leak (natural gas or LPG) 99

 Outside Gas leak (natural gas or LPG) 32  Chemical hazard (no spill or leak) 3  Refrigeration leak 1  Carbon monoxide incident 43  HazMat release investigation w/no HazMat 5  Biological hazard investigation, none found 1

IsoPod - The IsoPod device would help with any possible multi-patient Covid outbreaks. It has special HEPA filters with air pumps that keep any potentially deadly airborne particles from reaching outside the capsule

The vapors and sludge remnants in this old gasoline storage tank ignited during the removal process