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Hazmat team describes staffing model, typical calls and support role to local incident commanders
Summary
Fire-safety officials briefed committee members on the state hazmat response team’s structure, typical incidents and how it supports local incident commanders without taking command of scenes.
The Department of Public Safety’s hazardous materials response team told the Government Operations & Military Affairs Committee on Jan. 30 that it operates as a technical support resource to local incident commanders and is activated when local resources cannot mitigate a hazard.
Michael Derocher, director of fire safety, said the HAZMAT team has one full-time chief, is hiring a second full-time position to handle Tier 2 reporting and planning, and consists of roughly 25 team members who are mostly part-time. "These team members are all the the diversity of them is overwhelming. We have a doctor on the team, a chemist," Derocher said, describing the mix of subject-matter expertise the team draws upon.
Derocher told lawmakers the team’s role is supportive: the state team typically does not assume incident command but will help set up incident command on-scene for rural departments that lack experience, and it assists with technical operations such as spill response, unknown substance identification, and mercury remediation. The director estimated the team handles about 200 calls per year and provides extensive phone consults when on-site response is unnecessary.
Committee members asked about common incident types and sufficiency of staffing. Derocher said mercury calls are infrequent but do occur in labs and older school equipment; meth labs, white powder incidents and propane leaks are more typical operational examples. On staffing adequacy, he said the current model — a small cadre of full-time employees supported by trained part-timers and volunteers — has been sufficient but the department continuously recruits and monitors geographic response times, noting three strategically placed command vehicles to improve statewide response time.
Derocher said the hazmat model has been cited as a national example and that the team routinely coordinates with the health department and local fire chiefs for public- and scene-safety matters. He offered to provide the committee with annual call and incident data, and staff pointed lawmakers to the state fire marshal’s annual report for aggregated statistics.
The committee requested incident count details, and staff said categorized data is available and will be provided after the briefing.
