OSHA AND EPA REGULATIONS

OSHA and EPA regulations define levels of training required for response to a hazardous materials incident. The level of training for each person who may respond to an incident must be certified by his/her employer (in the case of volunteer fire departments, the city that they have volunteered under is the employer). Responders will not perform any function they are not trained and equipped to execute.

• None of the Fire Departments in any of our four counties are trained as HazMat Response Teams beyond the Awareness level (the first level of four levels), other than the Norfolk Fire Department, which is trained to the third level.
• No Fire Departments have the very specialized equipment to respond beyond a certain level to hazardous materials incidents
• The Fire Departments have response vehicles equipped with some of the following resources: self-contained breathing apparatus, bunker/turnout gear, binoculars, foam/agents, foam application equipment, sorbets, communications, radiological monitoring equipment, dry chemical extinguishers and are trained to handle some but not all hazardous materials incidents.
• Several Facilities that use and store hazardous materials have response teams and equipment, these teams will only respond to incidents that are on site at their facility. Their equipment may be available for use by other responding units.

BACK TO ON-SCENE EMERGENCY RESPONSE