From the files of David White, President of Fire & Safety Specialists (1981-2023)
Firefighters do not always need an alarm bell to know its time for work. Suddenly, all existence heaves like a sick drunk. The sound of a terrible concussion echoes across the equipment bay. Every pane of glass in the station house is simultaneously tapped by invisible fingers. Maybe that prize picture of the town’s first fire chief comes off the wall with a crash.
The Boom Response
I call it the boom response. Nobody waits for the first of a flood of 911 calls. Something big has happened and that fireball rising over the local industrial corridor tells you it needs immediate attention.
So the fire trucks start pulling up to the main gates of Filibuster Fabricating and Foundry, that big plant that feeds half the town. A couple of things are immediately apparent. First, there is a big fire. Bigger than last year’s tire store fire. Bigger than last Christmas’ apartment complex fire. Bigger than anything the department has ever simulated in training exercises.
Second, there are almost certainly casualties, maybe even fatalities. Not to worry though. The pre-plan says report to the main gate and receive instructions. But the front gate is wide open. No security guard. No one in charge is to be found. What now?
Unfortunately, too many municipal or district fire chiefs act as if industrial hazards become their responsibility the day of the event, not the day they took the job. Go through the facility in advance and pre-plan it as thoroughly as any other potential fire risk. Plants, refineries, factories and mills are an integral part of the community, not untouchable fortresses.
Time after time, you read the same quote from the fire chief after some industrial catastrophe – “We had no idea what was burning.” That fire chief needs to find another job. The chief has the authority under city, state and federal regulations to know what his department is expected to deal with. Even in facilities cloaked by national security, the local fire department has the authority to demand access.
What are the Hazards
What are the hazards? What is the worst thing conceivable that could happen? What is the worst thing inconceivable that could happen? How do you respond? Do you go on the offensive or the defensive? Is choosing not to intervene at all a reasonable alternative? Every fire department has its limits. A typical six engine department does not have the resources to tackle a major fire on the top floor of a 10-story high rise. Likewise, an understanding of the resources needed to tackle an industrial fire can make the difference between half a plant or no plant. There is no shame in being defensive and letting the facility burn. It is an acceptable strategy when pitting limited resources against the worst disasters devised by man.
Every industrial facility subject to federal regulations has an emergency plan. The problem is too often these plans are aimed at compliance rather than command. Some overpaid expert is retained to draft a plan with all the right buzz words. Instead of tailoring the plan to meet the individual facility, the expert works from some across-the-board matrix. Simply switch out the names, fill in the blanks and don’t forget to staple the MSDSs to the back.
Most of these plans are junk, pure and simple. I recently inspected the plan for a plant in Houston that contained an entire section on earthquakes. Texas has just about everything that can kill – tornados, floods, hurricanes, falling space debris – but no earthquakes.
A Real Pre-plan is Needed
A real pre-plan is needed. It should tell you what chemicals are found on hand and whether those chemicals are reactive, explosive or toxic. It should also tell the local fire department what it needs to be able to handle an emergency involving those chemicals. If the company is not willing to provide that information, the responsibility falls to the fire chief to find out.
The federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-To-Know Act (EPCRA) requires facilities to submit MSDSs or chemical lists and emergency hazardous chemical inventory forms to the Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) and the local fire department with five business days after the reportable hazardous chemical is present. Of course, there are exceptions. Last October fire spread through a hazardous materials transfer facility in Apex, N.C. Apex Fire Chief Mark Haraway made it his business to identify the threat and plan for it in advance. The categories of waste included oxidizers, bases, acids and flammables. However, quantities involved fell below the threshold of EPCRA. Because the site’s inventory changed on a regular basis, all the facility was required to maintain was a daily manifest.
That manifest was unavailable to firefighters because it burned with the rest to the facility’s contents.
What other questions should a fire chief ask? For example, is there an alternate water supply? The annuals of industrial fire fighting are rife with instances where an initial explosion took out fixed systems such as pumps and water towers. Can you pump into the facility’s system using simeses or through fire hydrants? Do firefighters need any specialized chemicals? Flammable metals require certain dry chemicals or powders to extinguish. The type of foam typically used to extinguish a crude oil storage tank fire is inadequate if a polar solvent is involved. Plant management may contract with third party specialists such as Williams Fire and Hazard Control or other fire protection group to put out the fire. The local fire department needs to understand how to interface with these groups.
So how can a fire chief satisfy himself on all these issues? Try a table top exercise. These exercises can be extremely elaborate with maps and models, or as simple as gathering the key players around the same table. Hiring a consultant who regularly conducts these exercises may be the most economical choice. Bear in mind that industrial facilities are required to have annual drills. A joint tabletop exercises with the local fire department is one way to fulfill that requirement.
Determine the Most Prominent Risks
Sit down with the plant manager and determine the most prominent risks. It may be anything from an explosion in a reactor to a spill of molten metal. Then bring everybody together in a classroom and announce the scenario. For example, somebody calls the guard post and reports that smoke is escaping from Building 7, the reactor building. Of course, every step in the drill includes the following proviso – “This is a drill.”
The guard then calls the 911 center. Next you hear the fire department toning out. In the classroom, the first engine company officer meets with the guard or the operations person, whoever the pre-plan says is supposed to be on hand.
“What have you got?” asks the officer.
“I’ve got smoke coming out of the reactor building,” replies the operations manager. “We evacuated the south plant and all the people have been accounted for.” Then you proceed to go through all the steps required by the emergency plan, making it as close to real time as possible. Calls from civilians outside the fence start coming in. “Hey, we’re getting calls from the 1400 block of Main Street that people are starting to smell smoke. Should they shelter-in-place or evacuate?”
If you opt to evacuate, that becomes the responsibility of the local emergency management. “Say, we need to set up an evacuation center at the civic center,” the LEPC head chimes in. Meanwhile the fire chief is setting up his command post using the front seat of his Suburban. All of this happens almost simultaneously. You may have people down in Building 7. You send in responders wearing Level A suits. Maybe you have to shut in some block valves to cut off the fuel to the fire. By the way, are the fire pumps working? If not, does your department know how to supplement the fire water system at the plant?
If You Decide to Intervene
If you decide to intervene, what are you going to intervene with? Are you going to put master steams in the building or use foam or dry chemicals? Are you going to protect exposures? What are you going to do about runoff? It may be necessary to get public works personnel to block Flatbush Creek to keep the runoff inside the fence. If the facility is situated on at waterway, you may have to alert the Coast Guard to halt ship traffic because of hazardous fumes. Maybe you have to shut down the local interstate highway. You can’t leave folks sitting in their cars all day. Those cars have to be detoured across the city. What problems does that represent?
Every one of these challenges have to be dealt with fast and in the right order. Never make a tabletop exercise so difficult that nobody could win. On the other hand, do not let the participant win every time you have a tabletop exercise. You have to challenge them in such a way that it not a cakewalk but not as insurmountable as climbing Mount Everest either.
One other important thing about tabletop exercises is that today there are a lot more players than just the fire chief and the plant manager. In the wake of 9/11, a host of federal and state officials arrive to participate. There is the guy with a badge that says Homeland Security, followed by the FBI, EPA and the state’s own environmental experts. At a recent haz mat incident a total of 110 agencies responded bringing 40 different command vehicles. Every one of these agencies can document a legal responsibility to be there. The days of commandeering the local McDonald’s as a command post are over. To accommodate all these officials, the fire chief may have to erect a circus tent.
Suddenly, the tabletop exercise coordinator announces “That it.” Everything stops. You bring everybody back together and proceed to review the exercise, step by step. The first time you hold an exercise the participants may seem like they have never been to an emergency before. People may be rusty and not know or remember all the steps they should take. They are going to miss a lot of important things, which is great. Because everything we miss or do not handle correctly becomes a learning experience where nobody gets hurt.
I like to conduct two tabletop exercises the same day. It is amazing how much people improve after the first exercise. The difference is astounding, like graduating from wannabes to professionals. It builds a lot of confidence that when that terrible morning comes where the sun rises in the west at 2 a.m. – only it is not the sun – plant management and local responders can perform as a team. The first fire officer on the scene is not just looking for the guy at the gate, but Bill, the guy that works the graveyard shift. He knows that the environmental manager is Sam. By the same token, the plant manager arrives on the scene knowing to find Chief Smith for the answers. That is the way it is supposed to work.
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