International Association of Fire Chiefs

Houston, Tex., October 15, 2010--The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and
Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and the International
Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) announced the creation of the National Hazardous
Materials Fusion Center’s web portal (Hazmat Fusion Center), a
responder-driven data collection, analysis and education center.

"Hazmat responders have traditionally looked to each other as a source
of learning, but have been largely restricted to local or regional
networks,” said Chief Jack Parow, IAFC president and chairman of the
board and a former member of the Massachusetts Hazardous Materials Team.
“The Hazmat Fusion Center will now allow us to learn from hazmat
technicians across the country, as well as to apply our knowledge to
national-level policy discussion and training models that we can adapt
to our local conditions. This not only benefits emergency responders,
but the public we are sworn to protect."

“PHMSA, in partnership with the IAFC, is committed to improve the safety
of every emergency responder, protect the public and infrastructure,
enhance the capabilities of the fire service, and increase response
effectiveness,” said PHMSA Administrator Cynthia Quarterman. “The Hazmat
Fusion Center will provide crucial information to decision makers at
the federal, state and local levels on the transportation and delivery
of hazardous materials.”

The Internet-based portal marks a significant milestone in the broader
hazmat community. It closes a historical gap in nationwide,
hazmat-information sharing capabilities by providing responders with
unprecedented opportunity to both contribute to and access a suite of
readily available resources. This free resource serves as a one-stop
shop for hazmat-response information, including training packages,
reports, incident-based case studies, statistics, trends, alerts,
recommendations and peer-to-peer networking.

The portal was designed with a consistent method of information
collection to support information sharing across jurisdictions and
levels of government and to support both individual and national-level
needs. The secure incident reporting system is available for hazmat
teams to enter, manage and analyze their own incident reports while
allowing the Hazmat Fusion Center to create a national picture of hazmat
response and disseminate regional and national hazmat trends and
statistics.

“It is very important that those of us in the hazardous materials
response community from around the nation are able to share information
with each other,” said Bill Hand, training coordinator for the Harris
County (Tex.) Fire Marshal’s Office and one of hundreds of responders
who contributed to the portal’s development. “The National Hazmat Fusion
Center is making that possible by bringing together in one location the
resources that we need to access this critical information.”

The portal is the central element of the Hazmat Fusion Center, a program
established and supported through a cooperative agreement between PHMSA
and IAFC. The program—which has adopted the tagline Responders Helping
Responders—was created using a bottom-up building process based on the
needs and the active input of the hazmat response community.

The Hazmat Fusion Center also includes the already-established Regional
Incident Survey Teams (RIST) and an operations center currently in
development. RIST members are local responders in each of the five PHMSA
regions who have volunteered to be trained and dispatched after major
incidents, at the request of the jurisdiction, to assist in collecting
lessons learned and analysis of the event.

Emergency responders must register either an individual or agency user
to access secure portions of the portal. Registered responders may view
full RIST survey reports, smart practices and lessons learned and may
participate in the hazmat discussion forum and bulletin boards. Agencies
that respond to hazmat incidents may register to use the Hazmat Fusion
Center’s incident-reporting system. Registration is free.

For more information, visit the Hazmat Fusion Center online or email hazmatfusion@iafc.org.