The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog has repeatedly urged that every
plant in our industry to have an ongoing working relationship with local emergency
services. Here is an example of why your plant should do this:
A chemical fire was reported at an industrial facility in
Henderson on Thursday afternoon.
The fire broke out after 1 p.m. at the TIMET facility in Nevada in
the USA.
According to Henderson Fire Department spokeswoman, the fire was
confined to a containment unit.
The Henderson Fire Department spokeswoman said magnesium reacts to
water, so a trained team at the facility was using a specific product to
extinguish the fire. Henderson firefighters were only at the scene to monitor
the situation.
It was reported the fire had been significantly reduced by 2 p.m.,
and the facility was not evacuated. Richards reported the scene had been
cleared after 2 p.m. There were no injuries reported.
The Aluminium Plant Safety Blog commends this plant on the quick action
of their personnel in acknowledging the hazard and immediately contacting the
local fire department. The successful story started years ago. Here is the
story:
In July
2014, Henderson firefighters have spent the past six weeks training for
worse-case scenarios with the hope of never having to use those skills.
Three
battalion chiefs and 30 firefighters finished 120 hours of technical hazmat
training Thursday that began in late May.
The
training focused on hazardous materials and weapons of mass destruction
response and decontamination, as well as detection of chemical, biological,
radiological, nuclear items and explosives.
The team
is scheduled to be operational later this year.
“They’re
trained to go in and mitigate the problem,” said the Henderson’s deputy fire
chief in charge of operations. “If you’ve got a leaking pipe, container or
transportation vehicle, they’re trained with how to deal with those problems by
stopping the leak.”
The
$200,000 training was funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of
Homeland Security, which paid for the firefighters’ salaries to attend the
class and equipment needed for the unit.
The
firefighters came from the city’s current staff, and no new personnel were
hired for the unit, according to White.
The
training was conducted by a hazmat training officer at the Nevada Test Site.
A Henderson
firefighter/paramedic said having the city’s own hazmat team will allow the
department to work in unity on hazardous calls.
“Keeping
this all in-house where we can train together allows you to prepare for the
worse case,” said the Henderson firefighter/paramedic, who has been with the
department since 2001. “So when you do get something thrown at you, everyone’s
on the same page on what you’ve got to end up doing.”
Some of
the Henderson hazmat team will go for additional training in Reno or Alabama,
which will be paid for by state and federal grants, not through city funds.
The main
reason for developing the hazardous-material team training is twofold: the
Black Mountain Industrial Complex is on a county island inside Henderson, and
Clark County Fire Department eliminated its hazmat unit during budget cuts
about four years ago.
Without
Clark County fire, the closest hazmat unit is the Las Vegas Fire Department,
which is about 45 minutes away from Black Mountain.
The
nearly 700-acre industrial complex, near the northeast corner of U.S. Highway
95 and Lake Mead Parkway, is home to companies using materials that are
potentially hazardous if they get out into the environment.
The
firefighters come from Station 98 near Coronado High School, a 10-minute
response time to the Black Mountain site.
White
said there is a city fire station closer to the Black Mountain, but a large
chemical accident could compromise that station, making it unable to respond.
The
specially trained firefighters will continue with their regular duties but will
be the city’s hazmat unit in case of emergencies.
The site
includes the Anadarko Petroleum Corp. plant, which uses manganese oxide;
Titanium Metals Corp., or TIMET, which produces titanium jet engine parts; and
Olin Chemical, which operates a chlor-alkali plant.
The site
is less than two miles from the old PEPCON plant, which produced ammonium
perchlorate before its explosion on May 4, 1988.
Thatcher
Chemical, a producer of industrial chemicals that sits on city land west of
U.S. 95 on Lake Mead Parkway, is also a potential area of concern, White said.
While the
training will give Henderson a first-response hazmat unit, the unit might be
lightly used. The last time an outside hazmat team was in the city was July
2013 for a titanium fire at TIMET, according to Fire Department spokeswoman
Kathleen Richards.
“They’ve
responded to other incidents over the last couple years as a precaution but
ended up being canceled before arriving or not being used,” Richards said.
The
training was not only for possible responses to Black Mountain. Henderson has
two federal highways that are used for carrying hazardous materials through the
city, and could have a third in the next 20 years.
U.S
Highway 95 runs from Railroad Pass through the east side of the city, while the
215 Beltway runs along the central part of Henderson including the densely
populated Green Valley area.
The
proposed Interstate 11, which could run along the current U.S. 95 corridor or a
newly built interstate farther east, could open the city to more hazardous
waste transportation if it gets built.
But it is
not just the highways that carry hazardous materials. Union Pacific has a rail
line that runs from the Black Mountain and Thatcher plants west through
Henderson, over the Pittman Wash near Arroyo Grande Park, crossing Green Valley
Parkway and Sunset Park on Eastern Avenue before continuing on past McCarran
International Airport and connecting with the north-south line west of
Interstate 15.
While the
recent training was for technical response for securing and containing an area,
the city firefighters receive regular training on hazmat awareness —
identifying chemicals and knowing when to call for support — and operations,
which includes victim rescue.
The
long-term goal for the specialized unit is to become a regional response team
that could answer calls all over the Las Vegas Valley.
The deputy
fire chief in charge of operations said the county and Black Mountain operators
have been supportive during the establishment of the hazmat team.
“It’s
been encouraging that the whole valley’s embraced us,” the deputy fire chief in
charge of operations said. “They realize there’s a need for more than one
hazmat team from across town to handle all this stuff.”
Magnesium fires can easily turn deadly. The Aluminum Plant Safety
Blog has posted incidents before involving injuries, and fatalities. The most recent
incident shows what can result when manufacturing plants and emergency
management departments work together. Not only are plant workers safer, so are local emergency management personnel.
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