Tactical Response to Explosive Gas Emergencies: Know Before You Go

By Jerry Knapp

Most fire departments in the United States respond to releases of two of the most common explosive gas emergencies, natural gas and propane. Case histories, near misses, andline-of-duty deaths (LODDs)from across the United States and Canada prove that all fire departments—big and small, career andvolunteer—have hugefirefighter training响应这些常见电话所需的知识和技能差距。

几个事实通常会导致故障链在燃气电话中聚集在一起，从而导致消防员受伤或洛德斯。一个经典的例子是悲惨的死亡纽约营酋长迈克尔·法希（Michael Fahy）2016年9月27日，在天然气紧急情况下。¹Typically, the failure chain has the following links: our complacency (gas odor calls are annoying and usually nothing happens), our explosive gas response training may be incomplete (it is not part of any national curriculum), there are seven types of天然气紧急情况（（you likely do not have procedures for each), ourstandard operating procedures (SOPs)可能无法提供实际和可执行-scene guidance, and our response procedures may not be based on gas industry best practices.

RELATED FIREFIGHTER TRAINING

• Tactical Procedures for Explosive Gas Alarms
• Tactical Size-Up for Explosive Gas Emergencies
• Natural Gas Emergency Strategy and Tactics
• 天然气紧急培训
• Tactical Size-Up of Natural Gas Emergencies

This article will provide you with a few of the many critical strategic and tactical concepts required for safe and efficient response to releases of explosive gases such as天然气和propane。

2012年1月16日1210小时，西部Haverstraw（纽约）消防局被派往外部气味。在1213小时到达现场时，我们发现了气气气味。使用地下无聊工具的承包商击中并穿透了模块化排房屋的住宅区域中的两英寸，每平方英寸的天然气街60磅。不受控制的气体在地下迁移了将近一个小时，然后累积的气体点燃。

In a common fire department operation, Captain Kenny Patterson and I were checking nearby homes for migrating gas with a four-gas meter. The two gas company technicians had been on the scene for as long as the fire department, about 43 minutes prior to the explosion. We had not found any evidence of gas in any of the eight previous homes, not even an odor. I had our four-gas meter and a six-foot hook. The last home closest to the leak was locked.

在锁着的建筑物上，这位天然气技术人员说，他对房屋内部的气体读出了很高的读数，需要我们强迫门。当房子内部的气体爆炸，完全切碎房屋时，我们正在等待一个带有强制入境工具的团队。

Instantly, it was not a routine gas leak. I saw something white fly over my head; it may have been the front door or the front wall of the house. The door landed across the street. I saw the house come apart. At times like this, your mind goes into hyperdrive. It is impossible to explain, but your mind is working super-fast and your vision is simultaneously, seemingly in super-slow motion.

众议院在微秒爆炸,但当我看到it happen in slow motion and instantly, I just knew it was going to be bad, really bad, deadly bad. It is amazing how fast your mind can watch and process an event like this. The bad news is that you are completely at the mercy of the incident. You are instantly aware of this, too.

My feet were now several feet off the ground; then, suddenly, I was on my hands and knees, staring down at the curb, wondering about a lot of things, primarily, how did I get here and was I dead? For all the mental power and memory of seeing it in slow motion, I did not know what happened. I was close to the house; then, I was at the curb.

I didn’t remember the flight, but I was burned, bleeding, and confused. It was deathly quiet. My head hurt. Was I dead? Bright red blood dripped from my head and pooled on the asphalt below me. My heart was still pumping—that was good. It seemed like an eternity, alone, more alone than you ever would be with smoke, dust, and blood as smothering, inescapable companions.

Emotions suddenly overran everything. Anger filled every void. Was it my destiny as a firefighter to die in this street among this trash (I was looking at a roll of toilet paper on the road in front of me)? Was I to die without even saying goodbye to my wife and son? But it was just a routine and annoying gas leak. What happened?

I did not know what was driving me to figure out what happened that day, to develop a practical SOP and an effective training program, until188金宝搏是正规吗Editor in Chief Bobby Halton wrote about post traumatic growth. Post traumatic growth is the positive side of experiences like this. As Halton explains, “It can drive you to new levels of understanding, research, and professionalism and to set and achieve new, lofty goals.” To this day, 10 years later, I am still learning new response techniques that I continue to use to improve the response procedures I am sharing.

Like other lucky firefighters who have survived a close call at a gas explosion, Patterson and I have survived our burns, broken bones, concussions, numerous injuries, and mental bruises, but it took a very long time with a lot of help from our friends and family and a fair amount of counseling.

Those times of spiritual reflection, punctuated by intense anger, emotional dives, and soaring spiritual experiences, drove me to use that long recovery time to learn why this incident went bad and what else we can do to better respond to natural gas leaks.

丹·莫兰（Dan Moran）是罗克兰县（纽约）危险材料的消防协调员，一个好朋友，也是一个更好的听众，他认识到我的目标的重要性，并成为我们寻求卓越的积极伙伴。他帮助我回答了这个问题：“这怎么会发生？”

I had been in the fire service for 37 years; had seen my share of fires and emergencies; had served as a paramedic; and, as the chief of our county hazmat team, was a constant student of our game and a trainee in every fire and hazmat course I attended, which were many. I have a degree in fire protection, wrote a book on house fires, and have taught at FDIC International for the past 12 years and around our nation. I had the four-gas meter with me. Who would be safer than me at this call? How could this happen?

我不知道我不知道什么

答案是我不知道我不知道什么。这正是美国最资深的宇航员之一约翰·杨（John Young）谈到挑战者灾难的话，“这是不知道我们不知道的案例之一，这是最危险的。”

Below are some of the most important things I did not know (and you probably don’t know, either) that nearly killed me. At first, I thought, this wasn’t my first gas leak; with all my training and experience, how could I miss these important points? But, as Moran and I waded through what I did and did not do on the scene and talked with experts around the nation, we realized that我从未受过训练达到所需的水平。You may not be either。The goal of this article is to fill part of that gap.

Critical Facts I Did Not Know

The fire department mission.Life safety, not find-and-fix, is our mission. We are in command of the scene and must be experts in explosive gas response. Our SOPs must provide clear guidance to protect the lives of both civilians and firefighters.

Gas detection。金属氧化物爆炸气检测器将检测到low levelsof gas that your four-gas detector will not. It is blind to around 2% of the lower explosive limit (LEL). Always pair up an inexpensive metal oxide-based explosive gas detector with your four-gas monitor to increase your safety and effectiveness.

Rapid size-up。Handheld, laser-based natural gas detectors are a great tool to use during your size-up of gas odor calls. Most have a 100-foot range and simply need the laser to pass through the gas and reflect off a wall, the ground, a fence, or another surface. Laser-based gas detectors can penetrate most glass; therefore, they can tell you if there is gas inside a locked structure. These instruments can tell you how much gas is there—a little, a lot, or none—instantly and from a safe range. They are magnificent size-up tools.

撤离优先事项。The fire department operation for evacuation moved from the outside of the kill box toward the leak. We should have started nearest the leak site and evacuated outward. This was not included in any training I attended, including that which was provided by the gas utility. Just like a search and rescue under fire conditions, get those in the most danger out first.

Underground gas migration.Gas was escaping from the broken main under the road surface back into the trench on the side of the road where the boring device was placed before it hit the gas main under the street. In the trench, I saw the soil was dancing (driven by pressurized escaping gas); my training taught me that the gas was lighter than air, so no problem. However, not all the gas was escaping up and being diluted in the air; some was migrating underground. Underground migrating gas will take the path of least resistance—in this case, into nearby buildings. The gas company never fully explained underground gas migration in their short slide shows. The statutory requirement for training firefighters on natural gas emergency response is vague, and the utility was training to the awareness level training. Fire departments operate at the technician and command level at natural gas emergencies, which is far beyond awareness training.