As part of the Simsbury Volunteer Fire Company's continual and evolving commitment to provide excellent state of the art emergency services, an in-house hazardous materials response team was formed in 2002 and two-dozen members were certified to the Environmental Protection Association standard for Hazardous Materials Technician. Besides allowing the Fire Company to provide a higher level of protection to the town for hazmat incidents, the response team has also given the Fire Company the ability to offer our services outside the boundaries of Simsbury by participating on a regional response level.

The Capitol Region of Governments (CRCOG) is the largest regional planning organization in Connecticut. Through CRCOG, the Simsbury Volunteer Fire Company has become an active participant in the Capitol Region Emergency Planning Committee (CREPC) and their new regional hazmat team. By way of the Regional Emergency Disaster (RED) Plan, Simsbury can request regional resource assistance above and beyond our historic mutual aid agreements with neighboring municipalities. The result of the Fire Company's participation in these programs is that an even higher level of protection is now afforded to the town through reciprocal regional resource assistance.

On the morning of May 15, 2005, members of Simsbury's response team along with personnel from Avon, East Hartford, Ellington, New Britain, Rocky Hill and West Hartford, responded as the CREPC hazmat team and participated in a multi-agency hazmat exercise in the town of Enfield. The CREPC team responded under a simulated activation of the RED Plan to provide regional assistance to a fellow member of CRCOG. The mock incident was run and critiqued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and funded by the federal government.

The exercise started at 9:25 a.m. with the Enfield Fire Department being dispatched on a simulated investigation for bystanders having heard a loud crash and subsequently spotting a green cloud. Enfield units responded to find three a three-bus accident involving a railroad tanker car that was now leaking chlorine gas. Approximately 50 people were involved and suffering from an assortment of injuries of varying degree, and contaminated from the leaking substance. Mutual aid assistance was requested to help mitigate the enormous incident.

First responders and mock victims wait for decontamination.

The CREPC team was given the assignment of deploying and manning their decontamination station.

CREPC members begin construction of the decontamination station.

CREPC members don their level B protective suits for operating at the decon station.

A member from West Hartford tapes all the seams of a team member's protective suit.

Decon personnel are in-place and ready to go to work.

Massachusetts Department of Fire Services District 4 HazMat Response Team makes entry into the hot zone to search for victims and inspect the leak.

Members of the entry team begin the decontamination process.

CREPC members scrub and rinse each entry team member thoroughly.

Decon personnel assist the entry team with doffing their protective suits.

Massachusetts District 4 prepares a second team to make entry and repair the leak based on the reconnaissance from the first team.

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First responders and mock victims wait for decontamination.

 

Photographs by Cliff Williams