One of the driest things we do in the fire service is our annual hazmat refresher. There are two groups of firefighters: those who say IDLH means immediately dangerous to life or health and those who say IDLH means I don’t like hazmat. Whatever group you fit into, we need to be prepared to answer the call safely and efficiently. One of the most basic tools we have for responding to a hazmat call is the Emergency Response Guidebook (ERG). Ask those who have been on the job for a while if they know the ERG, and the answer is usually, “Oh yeah.” But, do they really know it?
当被要求做一个复习,我通常得到crew in the day room, give them an ERG, and get back to basics. I tell the students that the ERG is orange on the outside because it’s our job to get to the orange on the inside.
The first subject we cover is the Table of Placards in the very front of the ERG. We all know uphill, upstream, upwind, so our safest approach is from those categories. I ask, Where are we coming from and where are we going to? What did dispatch say we had? What rig are we taking? Our safest approach is staging far enough away so that we are not in the hot zone. If we are that far away, can we see product names or numbers? Maybe all we see is the color of the placard. If that’s the case, we use the Table of Placards to identify what guide number we go to. I mention that I usually choose the lowest number in the guide just to be on the safe side. Guides go from 111 to 172, in the order of decreasing hazard. The guides are presented in a two-page format; the left page covers potential hazards. Is it safe for us to even attempt to do anything, or do we direct the endangered people to a safe area and wait on a formal hazmat team? That page is where we start, and if we can’t get past it, then we wait.
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