Hazards and Hazmat
Without a doubt, you will encounter hazardous materials and hazards while responding to calls. It is critical to your survival that you know how to safely interact with contaminants and hazards and decontaminate appropriately. Discover properties and effects of different hazardous materials, advantages and disadvantages of PPE types, victim rescue and recovery, evidence preservation and sampling, illicit laboratory incidents, and more. Courses in this topic are based on the NFPA standard 472.
| Course Name | Course Description | Length |
|---|---|---|
|
HAZMAT: Air Monitoring and Sampling |
This course will examine the difference between air monitoring and air sampling, both of which are essential at every fire scene. Conducting air sampling or monitoring can help to identify and qualify potential hazards, determine the appropriate PPE needed, and establish work zones at a fire scene. This important step can help firefighters distinguish between hazardous and safe environments. |
1h |
|
HAZMAT: Basic Toxicology |
Toxicology is a field of science that helps us understand the harmful effects that chemicals, substances, or situations can have on people, animals, and the environment. By using the power of science to predict what and how chemicals may cause harm, toxicology allows us to share that information to protect public health. In this course, our discussion of toxicology is going to address how the knowledge of toxicology principles and the application of that knowledge can create a safer, more effective, and more efficient response to a hazardous materials incident. |
1h |
|
HAZMAT: Evidence Preservation and Sampling |
Many entry-level hazardous materials training programs do not address the knowledge firefighters must have to safely, effectively, and efficiently assist law enforcement agencies with the collection and preservation of evidence from hot zones. This course provides firefighters and other emergency responders with a broad overview of that knowledge, since fire departments are increasingly being called upon to assist LE at chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, explosive (CBRNE) or toxic industrial chemical (TIC) events. |
2h |
|
HAZMAT: Mass Decontamination |
In the aftermath of a hazardous materials or weapons of mass destruction incident, where people have been exposed to chemical, biological, radiological, or unknown hazards, immediate mass decontamination is needed to minimize the consequences from exposure to hazardous materials. In this course, we’ll look at situational awareness, identification, and mass decontamination procedures and a mass destruction incident. |
1h |
|
HAZMAT: Overview Hazardous Materials and Substances |
This course has been designed and written for the firefighters and other emergency responders who have previous hazardous materials training and certification (e.g., Awareness, Operations, Technician, Specialist). The purpose of this course is to provide an effective and efficient means by which those firefighters and first responders can obtain continuing education in the field of hazardous materials. It will provide a refresher for previous training and new information that helps firefighters upgrade their knowledge base. |
2h |
|
HAZMAT: Personal Protective Equipment |
In this course, the student will be exposed to information and ideas surrounding the proper use of chemical protective equipment (CPE) when responding to emergency incidents where a hazardous material has been released. The student will learn how the protection of firefighters who respond to such incidents must begin well before the response, continue through the response, and only end with a proper follow-up after the incident. Topics discussed will include firefighter pre-hab, pre-entry medical surveillance, selection of the appropriate PPE, and post-entry medical surveillance and on-site firefighter rehab. |
2h |
| HAZMAT: Planning and Responding to Hazardous Materials Incidents | Planning and Response Considerations for Hazardous Materials Incidents provides a summary of the primary factors that are involved in the proper preparation for and management of response to hazardous materials incidents. Hazardous materials incidents are typically low frequency, high consequence events that emergency responders must successfully manage. The nature of hazardous materials emergency response dictates that specialized training, planning, and preparation be conducted to keep emergency responders, the public, and the environment safe from harm. | 1h |
|
HAZMAT: Preparing for Potential Harm and Response |
Are you prepared for a potentially harmful incident? How will you respond? In this course, the learner will gain a better understanding of what can be achieved through preparations and planning prior to an emergency incident where hazardous materials are involved. The topics addressed in this course include understanding and evaluating risk, vulnerability, and the probability of harm. |
1h |
|
HAZMAT: Product Control |
This course provides those firefighters who have previous hazardous materials response training (e.g., Awareness, Operations, Technician, or Specialist) with the opportunity to refresh their existing body of knowledge for defensive tactical product control. During this course, we will be discussing defensive product control strategies. This includes the most frequently used product control strategies for most fire departments for those incidents involving gases, vapors, and liquids. |
1h |
| HAZMAT: Responder Safety | This course has been designed to help firefighters and other emergency responders, with prior hazardous materials certification and training (e.g., Awareness, Operations, Technician, Specialist), ensure their health and safety when responding to a hazmat scene by understanding how heat stress affects the human body and the impact hazmat suits can have on the responder. This course also explains how to properly characterize a hazard release site to protect the health and well-being of all firefighters and emergency responder personnel at the scene of a hazardous materials release. | 1h |
| HAZMAT: Responder Safety from Fire Smoke | All fire smoke is hazardous regardless of the source – hazmat, car fire, or room and contents fire. Fire smoke is the result of incomplete combustion, and the toxins in that mix can kill you. Maybe not today, but it is the accumulation of eating smoke or breathing those first whiffs of smoke that will get you exposed. It will likely show up years later as a form of cancer. Because there is a wide array of toxins in today’s smoke, you need to know how to respect the smoke, how to avoid it, and how to protect yourself from smoke exposures at all fires. This course will review the constituents of fire smoke, why it is hazardous, and some simple tips to protect first responders from smoke. | 1h |
| HAZMAT: Response to Illicit Laboratories | Illicit laboratories can pose a significant hazard both to first responders and the community, which is why it is so important that you understand how to prepare and plan a response before the call comes. In this course, we will discuss analyzing an incident, PPE, and how to plan a response within various personnel. We will also explore how to control and mitigate equipment and how to implement the planned response of the Incident Action Plan. | 1h |
| HAZMAT: Responding to Terrorist Incidents | Given the continual risk of terrorist attacks and large-scale mass casualty incidents, it’s imperative that first responders understand emerging threats and learn from past incidents, so they can effectively operate during the chaotic but critical minutes and hours after an incident or terrorist attack. This course focuses on terrorism, including its definition, the primary goals of terrorists, types of potential targets, types of terrorist attacks, and response preparation. | 1h |
| HAZMAT: Technical Decontamination | When responding to an incident involving a CBRNE/TIC/WMD, technical decontamination becomes a critical component of a fire department response. The purpose of technical decontamination is to safely remove any contaminants from those involved with the scene and to decontaminate any tools and/or equipment that were used. This course will examine key aspects of technical decontamination as well as the role that firefighters play in the decontamination process. This course is meant to provide firefighters, who have had previous training in hazardous materials response, with a course that addresses the operations level responder with a mission-specific competency in technical decontamination. | 1h |
| HAZMAT: Transportation | This course will provide information on the transportation of hazardous materials and will emphasize the importance of knowing and understanding the basic requirements for shipping hazardous materials using that are covered by 49 CFR (DOT) regulations. This course will discuss how to identify potential hazards when rail tank cars are involved in accidents and when other modes of hazardous materials transportation are involved in accidents. It will also examine how to effectively use markings, labeling, placarding, and shipping papers for incident size-up when arriving at an incident involving hazardous materials during transportation. | 1h |
| HAZMAT: Victim Rescue and Recovery | In this course, you will gain knowledge and understanding for the requirements of NFPA 472: Standard for Competence of Responders to Hazardous Materials/Weapons of Mass Destruction Incidents as they pertain to identifying, search for, and removing victims who have been exposed to a hazardous material. We will discuss assessing the hazards related to victim rescue and recovery at a scene involving hazmat, tools that can be used to assist with victim rescue and recovery, and how to conduct a rescue operation. | 1h |
|
Hazmat First Responder Awareness (FRA) Level I |
This Hazmat First Responder Awareness course assists the First Responder in recognizing the hazardous substance and understanding how to respond. Course Accreditation Disclaimer: This is a general education course, and the Academy is not responsible for continuing education credits that are rejected in any way. Given the variation in the approval and acceptance of continuing education credits state to state, it is advised that you confirm re-certification and training requirements, including accepted courses, with your administrator and check the accreditation page on our site that corresponds with your state. |
2h |