Firefighters Participate in Hazardous Materials Training

Six members of the Fire Department participated in a hazardous materials course with the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy last week.

Chief Bill Warnock, Deputy Chief Barry Galvin, Captains Rick Nash and Joe Marotta and Firefighters Kevin Carter and Dave Lee participated in a three-day course: Hazardous Materials: Operational Level Responder.

According to the Fire Department, the firefighters learned methods to identify hazardous materials, assess various types of hazardous material incidents, when to call for assistance from the regional hazardous materials response team and the importance of pre-planning.

"We also learned methods of diking and damming spills, how to set up decontamination areas, using various detection meters," said Galvin.

The photo attached to this post demonstrates a method called "RAM Decon" Rapid Access Mass Decontamination, which allows firefighters to decontaminate a group of people.

According to the Fire Department, two pumpers and one ladder truck were used to create a shower to rinse the hazardous substance off victims.