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Terephthalic Acid Transportation Fire - what would you do?
You have been dispatched on the 2nd alarm to an interstate highway for a rollover wreck and fire involving an intermodal container truck. The first alarm had an engine company, an ALS ambulance, and a tanker/tender. Engine 1 arrived to find the intermodal truck rolled onto its top, with the cab on fire, the driver trapped and critically injured, and the container module leaking two-foot pyramids of a granular white powder from the rear doors and two tears in the container's side.
The 2nd alarm consists of two additional engine companies, a heavy rescue company, a hazmat team, and three chief officers.
Engine 1, assisted by Tanker 1 extinguished the cab fire with water, but the fire extended to the product. Engine 2 arrived and extinguished the spilled product fire with Class B foam. The runoff is collected in a nearby ditch at a blocked culvert pipe.
You are the first-arriving chief. You arrive on scene immediately behind Rescue 1 and Engine 3. Both southbound lanes of the interstate are blocked by the wreck. The northbound lanes are seperated by a 150-foot-wide median covered with trees, and traffic is flowing north. There is a crossover 100 yards south of the scene.
Engine 1 advises that they have located the shipping papers. The shipping papers indicate that the product is Terephthalic Acid Anhydride. They also advise that the driver is still trapped, is conscious and screaming in pain, and has 20% second and third-degree burns, fractured ribs, and several large head, arm, and torso lacerations. The are asking for immediate help from the rescue company.
What are your priorities?
What is your initial IAP?
What additional resources do you need?
What are the primary and secondary product hazards?
What decontamination procedures will you use?
How many units are you willing to commit prior to Hazmat 1's arrival?
What are your safety considerations?
Does the photo give you any vital clues when you take a second look?
The other two chiefs, whom you outrank, are arriving. It's time to go to work.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Trainer on
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Ben I’m a little curios; did you know exactly what you were dealing with or even after the MSDS sheet were you still in doubt? I guess what I’m getting at, if you are not sure, why not level A right off the bat, that’s what we are taught.
If I’m reading right, this product is water reactive?? Have spare bottles standing by, try to get them to slow there breathing, I have seen guys go as long on the alarm as they did with it off, strip the guys down this should allow you to send them to the shower with little of no product present, and then you’re going to bag and tag all this gear, for cleaning or disposal, hope this company has good insurance.
As for the victim, this is a tough one; a call to the resource hospital for advice might be in order. Use to be they would allow saline, but today I don’t think they want anything in a burn case, but decon is necessary and will go with their recommendation, after all its there ER on the line.
I got to be critical on this one; appears to not been handled right from the beginning. Way too much was jeopardized for 1 victim. Not having any idea of what the leaking powder was and to conduct fire operations without that knowledge is unacceptable, you put everyone on-scene at risk. Maybe everything turned out right, but in this business the end does NOT justify the means.
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Permalink Reply by Jason Brooks on
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Most recieveing hopitals are not equipped with the knowledge to give hazmat advice. You may find that you have one or two in your area that are. Online resources, CAMEO, Chemtrec, WISER, etc. are much better resources for this.
Again, I think dry decon will be better for the firefighters. Why make the situation worse than it already it?
Second, here is a down and dirty way to decide on suits. Unknown gases, use level A. Unknown liquid or solids, use level B. Level A suits are gas tight suits that cost a lot more. There is no vapor hazard with solids, or they would not be solids. The biggest key, is to stay out of the product as much as possible all the time.
In this case, if the hazmat was a major concern, whether due to lack of information or good information, you may have to consider that the driver is dead and do not approach the scene at all. Unless he is actually screaming for help, with fire and an unknoen chemical hazard, you have to make a choice.
Remember, risk a lot to save a lot. If you are not equipped to handle the situation, don't go into it. What will your LODD serve if you enter a scene that you had no business in at all.
This scene has no exposures. Shut the road down and wait for the appropriate help. You can set up portabl monitors or bigger lines from a distance to extinguish the fire if you need to. Just remember, I went to technician school and have been on the team getting real world OTJ experience and you have not. (this is aimed at the editorial you). Let the guys who have trained for this handle it. If this were a rope rescue, I would expect the same thing.
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Both of our resource hospitals are set up for hazmat, that’s why I would call; EMS would have done this already, just looking for input/direction considering the burn victim.
Dry decon is good to remove the bulk of the product, but will still be imbedded in the gear, secondary decon will still be needed. We had to do this with 25 FF’s at a farm chemical warehouse fire, striped, bag and tag, ran the boys through the decon truck. Gear was sent away for cleaning.
I like your approach on suit selection, however I’ve been taught if you don’t know its level A, cost has nothing to do with it, remember spiller pays. In the right situation solids can off-gas; I’m not taking any changes.
Everything else looks good; I only gotten into hazmat in the last 5 years, mostly because we’ve had to. I to am a team member, tec A, probably won’t do B, have a ton of knowledge, but do lack OTJ experience, I’m not a rookie, but will bow to experience. My point to the critic was, and a mistake easily made, fire operations start and realize maybe too late, this is hazmat and now has made the situation worse.
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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We knew only that the product was an acid, that it had a low pH, and that it was water-reactive. We hypothesized (correctly, as it turned out) that the pH would get even lower if we added water. We had no other information and couldn't get it before the engine and rescue firefighters were out of air.
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I am not putting you down at all. We have actually had some experience where the spillers have questioned the use of Level A suits, or B for that matter and not had to pay the full price. If they question what you use, you need to be able to justify it. Just blindly using Level A for every unknown, could get you in a situation where your team/department has to pay for suits that they had planned on the spiller paying for.
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Do you have documentation on this product? I would be interested to read it.
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I don't have written documentation. I'll post how we handled the incident shortly.
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No offense; as for the billing sounds like settling rather than fighting, we have had to do this before, dam lawyers.
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Here's how this one was handled...
The engine and rescue companies were able to determine that no product had reached the cab. They extricated and packaged the driver, and brought him to EMS. He was transported to a Level I trauma center. He survived.
There was a significant delay in the hazmat part of the incident, as the product and hazards were not identified initially. CHEMTREC was eventually able to contact the corporate safety officers of the only two manufacturers that make this product in the U.S. They were not initially able to determine which company had made the product, but of the industrial reps gave the same advice. The prefaced this advice with "This isn't scientific, but this is what I'd do if this happened at the loading dock at my company". It was great advice, it was consistent between the two sources, and it was practical to implement. We never got a MSDS that told us what we needed to know about this product. Lesson - sometimes the MSDS doesn't tell you everything you need to know.
The product is water-reactive. It is minimally water-soluble. The water reaction is an increase in corrosivity and a physical change from a granular powder to a gooey, bubble-gum-like substance that is very difficult to remove from gear and PPE.
Our choice was Level A, but no flash protection. The recon team was able to determine that the product didn't contribute to any detectable flammable vapors on the LEL sensor. The fire was a simple vehicle fire due to the wreck.
The decon method chosen was to simply doff the suits into large trash bags, securing the bag tops, and placing the bags immediately into overpack drums.
The same went for the contaminated boots and turnout pants from the engine and rescue companies. The reason for this is that even with secondary decontamination, the acid would likely damage the turnout shells to the point that any subsequent thermal exposure would disintegrate the turnouts. The leather boots were permeated and not physically amenable to decon.
SCBA were simply removed by the decon team once the firefighters and hazmat techs were away from the PPE doff area. We cleaned them as per normal use, but they weren't exposed to the product. This was confirmed with pH paper swabs.
We could have used Level B, based on the hazards. Level A was chosen to protect the SCBA from contamination.
Once we determined that the product didn't add to the flammability hazard, we went into backup role, and a commercial cleanup company offloaded the product into another intermodal container. It was then hauled off. The contaminated product on the roadway was shoveled into overpack drums. Acid neutralizer was then applied until it stopped reacting. A load of sand was dumped and spread over the spill area, then swept up and hauled off. The contaminated water was determined to have a near-neutral pH, and was gradually released into the stormwater drain under the supervision and metering of environmental agency reps.
The message here is that we can't just assume that all civilians in hazmat incidents are contaminated, and that their injuries are not survivable. If you don't have a hazmat team, know where to get one - quickly. Remember that the fire chief remains legally responsible for the incident, even after the hazmat emergency response team and the cleanup company are on scene and operating.
Also remember that water decon doesn't always work. If you see or hear a word like "anhydrous" or "anhydride" in a chemical name, STOP! That chemical has had the water removed by an artificial process, under controlled temperature and pressure. If you add water to it under uncontrolled conditions, the product may react unpredictably. In this case, it generates heat, which isn't something I want happening if I'm the one inside the contaminated rubber suit with the product on it.
Hazmat IAPs are the responsibility of the fire chief...with consultation with technical experts like the hazmat team, CHEMTREC, and public health and environmental agencies.
The Interstate was closed for about 9 hours for the incident and the cleanup. The opposite lanes were never affected.
There's still one thing about this incient that no one has mentioned yet.
Look at the photo again, and see what you can come up with.
Ben
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Not sure what you are looking for from the picture other than that this is an intermodal and will most likely have been separated from the flat bed when it rolled.
We have gone away from unencapsulated Level B's on our team for the exact reason that you mentioned. All of our suits A and B are fully encapsulated to protect the SCBA. The cost difference is minimal. The replacement cost of ans SCBA is not so minimal.
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We're actually going away from encapsulated Level B. If we need to protect the SCBA, the suit needs to be gas-and-vapor-tight. We wear non-encapsulated Level B where corrosive splashes aren't a problem.
I'll give the other guys a chance on the intermodal detail. You're on the right track, but there's a visual cue that I still haven't heard addressed.
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