Training zone

Bella Vista firefighters attend regional hazmat training

Michael Burchfiel/Siloam Sunday From the Benton County Command Center, dispatchers had a view of the action and could see where different teams were located.
Michael Burchfiel/Siloam Sunday From the Benton County Command Center, dispatchers had a view of the action and could see where different teams were located.

Fire departments from across Northwest Arkansas, including six from Bella Vista, amassed in Siloam Springs on July 13 for a day of training and cooperation.

This year marked the first time Siloam Springs has hosted a regional cooperative meet.

"Just to have the extra training and get all these guys together is great," said Travis White, deputy chief of operations for the Siloam Springs Fire Department. Meets like this one occur four times a year and cover a range of emergencies including hazardous-materials response, collapsing buildings and mass casualty situations, White said.

Bella Vista Fire Chief Steve Sims said regional training is a very valuable exercise.

"For instance," Sims said, "Wednesday was the first time we've trained with the bomb squad, and on Thursday they were in our parking lot because of a possible bomb in the police station. So, we're training with them one day, and the next we're working with them."

Bella Vista has nine hazmat team members.

He said the Bella Vista firefighters didn't really learn anything new; rather, the training reinforced skills they know. One twist that was new, Sims said, is that the training scenario was a bomb involved with a chlorine leak at the Siloam Springs Water Treatment Plant.

The leak was in a building that houses four one-ton chlorine gas tanks. A fake gas tank was set up next to the real tanks. The training tank is a simulation of the ends of the one-ton chlorine gas tanks, which are used everywhere from treatment plants to swimming pools, according to a firefighter on the scene who was overseeing the event.

Benton County Dispatch set up a mobile command at the Water Plant that had a tall antennae with a camera on top that could see the affected scene. During reconnaissance of the area, the Benton County team discovered a "bomb" in front of the building with the gas containers.

Bentonville's Bomb Squad took charge and the bomb was rendered safe by one of the squad's bomb disposal robots. The bomb disposal unit is one of six such units in Arkansas, according to its website.

Attention then turned back to the simulated chlorine emergency.

There were two zones set up in the training response. The "hot zone" was the designated area where no one without a hazmat suit could be because of the chlorine leak. Firefighters were stationed at the "warm zone," which was the point past which no hazardous material was allowed, including any residue on the hazmat suits. Scrubbing stations were set up to decontaminate suits on returning firefighters.

Firefighters from different agencies worked together to get two responders into hazmat suits and into the hot zone, where they found the training tank, which was leaking from two different points. Using a kit specifically made for that type of chlorine tank, they were able to stop the leaks, but a third leak started so the pair had to return to the warm zone because they were out of parts.

Two other teams suited up and worked on the tanks to help spread the training out to more firefighters.

General News on 07/20/2016