Training and keeping up with new equipment and practices is nothing new. Every job has training, but when it comes to training that pertains to saving lives, Lafayette Fire Chief Todd Wagoner says it鈥檚 of the utmost importance to him and his team. The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency (TEMA) was here last week to train first responders and firemen about chemicals and the ways to handle spills or contamination.
鈥淚f we have any kind of an incident that involves hazardous materials of any type, these training hours give our guys the knowledge to be able to research what the product is, and how to move forward with it,鈥 said Wagoner. 鈥淚f we have a spill or anything of that nature, this training gives us the knowledge and ability to go down range with the people who are certified through these classes. We can send them down to the source where they can then contain the leak until a clean-up crew can come on site and begin cleaning the spill.鈥
This is the first class of its kind that Lafayette has hosted in quite some time, and Wagoner says that it gives them an upper hand in fighting hazardous spills.
鈥淚 was the only one that was actually still certified to be able to be able to do anything pertaining to hazmat scenarios,鈥 said Wagoner. 鈥淲e asked TEMA about coming up here and teaching this class and we were able to get seven of our people in it. We may send more people later, and everyone with the department is operations level, but operations level personnel can only go down range into a scene if they are accompanied by someone that is technician-certified. Once they finish the class, we will have those seven guys that will be technician-certified, and myself being a specialist gives us eight people that can go down range and if we need more hands on deck, we can have eight teams of two (one certified and one operations level).鈥
Wagoner said hazardous chemical contamination isn鈥檛 necessarily a growing concern but definitely something to be aware of.
鈥淚t is a concern that is always there,鈥 he said. 鈥淲e have been lucky and not had to do anything with it. That being said, you never know what might come through on a tractor and trailer. If you get to a spill, and there鈥檚 some kind of green fog or something, you have to figure out what it is, and do it quickly.鈥
According to Chemical Incident Tracking, there were 270 incidents in 2023 in the United States involving chemicals or other agents spillage requiring cleanup.
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