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Online Hazmat WMD Training: Engine Pump Discharge Water Temperature
This is the first in a series of training that I am putting together for FFN members to look at the individual components involved with hazmat WMD response. I have no idea if this is something that will be of interest but will take a wait and see approach before exploring some other topics.
This discussion focuses on providing emergency water supplies for a hazmat WMD event. There are several options out there for controlling the water temperature for an event. This is certainly "out of the box" thinking. If you can't make the water hot from your engines pump, then where can you find hot water
in an emergency?
Engine Pump Discharge Temperature:
* I've done this in the past, but it was not necessarily done on purpose... and I know that I am not the only one who lost the pumps prime... right? But can this be done in a controlled manner? Anyone thought about this?
This is an important factor when dealing with providing personnel decontamination in cold weather. Hypothermia is a definite risk factor that can be prevented. Spraying ice cold water on people could do a lot of harm, especially when dealing with the elderly, very young or medically compromised.
To not plan ahead and thinking about how you can make water warm is not something to shine on. Just think in terms of your family having to go through an emergency decontamination outside of a shopping mall, including soap and water that makes use of ice cold water. No one should be tortured because your department did not take the time to preplan this need. So how have you prepared for this?
TCSS,
CBz
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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CBz, one of the things that tends to be forgotten is that most water-soluble chemicals tend to wash off with water or soap-and-water.
Some oil-based chemicals do better when chelated with an oil-based decon solution.
Examples are some of the industrial adhesives. They tend to turn to very sticky semi-solids when exposed to soap and water. If you use corn oil or mineral oil as the initial step, the product and the oil-based decon solutions wash off well with soap and water.
Another example is Phenol, which is minimally-soluble in water but is very soluble in alcohol. We carry a few quart jugs of unscented rubbing alcohol to use as the first solution in Phenol decon. Once the Phenol is diluted with the alchohol, the Phenol/alcohol mix is easily washed off with water.
As for the trash bag redress trick it is a good one. However, it's a little too close to the description of a Level A hazmat suit as "A body bag with a picture window."
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CBz, two of our hazmat techs came up with this idea when discussing what to do if the scene didn't allow the second engine to make up the other half of the funnel.
All you have to do is put an elbow on the deck gun to bend the stream down, then use a 2-1/2 fog nozzle in place of the deck gun tip.
Three firefighters can set up this entire evolution, including LDH water supply in under three minutes.
We also found that for a lot of people with minimal contamination, directing the ladder pipe horizontally (bottom photo) and making a large area wet with small droplets allows faster processing of the ambulatory patients and creates less runoff.
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For clarification, if the scene has a road too narrow for the second pumper, or if only one pumper is on scene, the single pumper/double shower technique works well.
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Permalink Reply by Trainer on
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The above mentioned decon truck is housed in a small rural community of 600 and has a response radius of about 60 miles, but will agree on the cost, 230,000 without consumables. This unit has 2 diesel fired hot water pressure washers as the heating units, combined with a "smart" valve delivers 99deg water(no user adjustment) to 10 shower heads.
The one problem I see with fire truck decon is no gray water capture, now other than a life safety issue, this has to be recovered, and washing a couple of glow worms in level B's don't count as that:)
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Permalink Reply by Reg Mathis on
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Thinking about this problem, I started wondering, if you could get a good supply of HOT water, like directly from a water heater(say in the 180 degree range), could you drop the pickup tube from a foam applicator into the hot water and discharge something warmer than cold tank water? I realize you might have to set your foam app. at 50% or better, but would it work?
Hmmmm....maybe something to try at this weeks training......
TCSS
Reg
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OSHA and EPA have both ruled that when you are decontaminating people, it is an emergency amd no runoff capture for environmental protection is required.
With the water volume being applied (500 GPM and up) any contamination in the runoff is going to be very, very dilute anyway.
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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on
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The report, NIST SP 981, Aid for Decontamination of Fire and Rescue Service Protective Clothing and Equipment After Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Exposures, provides first responders with basic emergency decontamination aid of personal protective clothing and equipment (PPE) in the event that it is exposed to CBR contamination. The report provides some basic guidelines for handling equipment exposed to relatively lower concentration CBR environments where human rescue is practical. NFPA 1971, Standard on Protective Ensembles for Structural .
Fire Fighting and other NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) standards are discussed. It is recommended that all relevant NFPA standards be kept with the NIST report. Guidelines for storing protective clothing and equipment safely after a CBR exposure also are included.
For anyone in cold geographic regions or areas that have temperature extremes, another report may be of interest: Guidelines for Cold Weather Mass Decontamination During a Terrorist Chemical Agent Incident (published by SBCCOM… the US Army Soldier and Biological Chemical Command). It has information on cold weather contamination. The report was published on 12 April 2002 and to download it from their web site, go to: http://www.sbccom.army.mil/ ; next, click on SBCCOM ONLINE and search the report title.
For additional information, contact Randy Lawson, telephone: (1) + 301-975-6877; e-mail: james.lawson@nist.gov.
Note: This is old information now, but the sources just might still be out there. Someone has taken the time to investigate and come up with standards for cold weather decontamination for the US Military. Perhaps one of you FFN members might know how to get ahold of this type of training material?
CBz
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Ben...that would be life safety.
When you dilute......you pollute...du-da....du-da
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Trainer, not necessarily. Some decon is a health issue, but doesn't rise to the level of life safety. The OSHA/EPA ruling is specific to "emergency decontamination", not to "life safety".
For example, it is standard practice to decon hazmat techs who have stopped a chlorine gas leak while wearing Level A suits. A little chlorine and water mixed on your skin from inadequate protection or from a suit that is holed during a Hot Zone entry may cause some skin burns, but it's unlikely to kill you.
Small chemical skin burns from the hydrochloric acid that results from mixing chlorine and water during decon don't rise to the level of a life safety issue.
Dilution does not necessarily mean that you pollute. If you dilute the product to a non-hazardous level, by definition, you're not causing pollution.
"Dilution is the solution to pollution."
Dr. George Kramer, Tennessee Emergency Management Agency,
HARM (Hazard Awareness and Risk Management for Hazmat Team Leaders Course circa 1985)
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Ben, your right, I use "life safety" as a catch all term and probaly shouldn't, well not here anyways, but for my defanition it's safety of or for life or to save life and rapid decon is acceptable. Now with that said and the EPA being what they are, an effort must be made or at least working toward it, to capture gray water.
As for dilution, and information is key here as with all hazmat, knowing what your dealing with is a must, I kind of have a one track mind, 95% of what we deal with is oil based so my apologies on this one, it's funny how things stick in your mind from classes long ago.
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Trainer,
There are two different objectives competing for catching decon runoff (or "gray water" as you term it).
The first objective is the Life and Health of the contaminated people. In this case, catching runoff is clearly a secondary priority.
The second objective is preventing secondary contamination to responders. This is where it can get a little tricksy. If the runoff - however dilute - runs off in such a way that responders have to walk through it to move decontaminated patients, operate fire pumps, set up additional decon lanes, etc., then we might need to re-think our plan. Capturing mass decon quantities of runoff is rarely practical.
Diverting the runoff to a place where it won't cause immediate harm to responders or bystanders and to where it is less likely to cause long-term harm to commerce, infrastructure, or the environment is a pretty strong second-tier objective.
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