Santa Barbara County Fire Department Hazardous Materials Response Team - Santa Barbara County, California


Members conducting a training exercise.

From official webpage of the team:
In this day and age the Fire Department not only puts out fires. Our changing times require firefighters to train for a wide variety of services. Hazardous materials (haz-mat) incidents involving the release of dangerous chemicals, nuclear or biological agents that could cause the loss of life, destruction of property, or harm to the environment must be dealt with.

The Santa Barbara County Fire Department Haz-Mat Team members include firefighters from stations 18 and 31 with minimum staffing requirements set to be on duty at all times. The team is a group of firefighters and staff who have the specialized training in the prevention and mitigation of incidents involving hazardous materials.

Preparation is a key factor because the job requires highly specialized clothing and equipment along with the knowledge of safe containment, decontamination and disposal in order to work with these events in a safe manner for both the public and for our haz-mat responders.