Yesterday’s explosion at the Kleen Energy Systems plant in Middletown, about 20 miles south of Hartford, killed five people and wounded a dozen.

FireRescue caught up with Bill Higgins, State Fire Disaster Plan Administrator for the Connecticut Commission on Fire Prevention and Control, who responded to the scene to support the county coordinators and the incident commander with special statewide resources.

“It was an overwhelming sight to see upon arrival,” Higgins says.

Coordinated Response
Within an hour, many personnel were on scene, including with local mutual aid, state officials and USAR members. As Higgins notes, “Connecticut is a small state, so we’re able to move resources pretty quickly anywhere in the state.”

Higgins arrived about an hour after the initial call, after initial crews had knocked down the fire. “There was quite a bit of local mutual aid on scene when I arrived,” Higgins says. “Incident command was set up and local fire chiefs were running the scene. Just before I arrived, the USAR team had been called.”

Also critical to the success of the operation over the next several hours: the regional Incident Management Team (IMT). “They were really helpful in completing the documentation and developing the second Incident Action Plan (IAP) to get us ready for the next phase,” Higgins says.

USAR units started to arrive with 90 minutes, first personnel and then equipment. The initial members who responded were USAR engineers, who were able to evaluate what was left of the building and determine its structural integrity for the other crews. The USAR director and state emergency management director, Bill Hackett, from the Connecticut Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, was also on scene.

In Their Favor
Despite the enormity of the scene, Higgins notes several factors that worked to first responders’ advantage. “I have to give credit to law enforcement, because they had already set up good control of access into the area when I arrived,” he says. “They were able to do that because there’s really only one road leading up to the building, which is situated on a hill.”

In addition, the timing of the incident—on a Sunday—limited the number of workers present. “There were about 100 construction workers on site at the time,” Higgins says, “but Monday through Friday, there are more than 600 construction workers there, so we were fortunate that this happened when it did.”

Transition to Recovery
Incident operations were suspended overnight for several reasons. “First, the size of the building makes it difficult to light the whole thing up,” Higgins says. “Second, the weather has been a factor; we’re dealing with extreme cold, and the building is up on a hill, so we’ve had a high wind condition yesterday and today.”

The final reason operations were suspended was to secure the scene. “They don’t know the cause at this point, so they have to rule out the fact that it could have been intentional,” Higgins says. It became a federal scene early this morning, and officials announced a transition to recovery operations after all individuals were accounted for.

Initial Lessons
Although it’s still early and the operation continues, Higgins notes that one thing that worked well in this incident was calling in the Incident Management Team early. “We’ve determined from after-action reports from other big incidents that the quicker you can call for the IMT response, the smoother the operation will go,” he says. “In our state they’re such a resource to the IC. They can fill roles that the IC may not have the manpower for or the qualified personnel to fill initially. The IMT helps especially for documentation, because you have so many resources arriving in that first period.”

Another lesson: Get a quick handle on self-dispatch. Higgins notes that at the beginning of the incident, self-dispatching was a problem, but personnel got word down to the security lines, and the plant’s restricted access was a natural aide in controlling who got to the scene. “In addition, the state fire administrator, Jeffrey Morrissette, put out a message through the Connecticut Fire Academy list serv—which a large portion of the state fire service subscribes to—saying, Do not self-dispatch,” Higgins says. “That seemed to help because the word got around quickly and the incidence of self-dispatching tapered out after the message had gone out.”

The Investigation Continues
For now, the incident has become the scene of several investigations, including OSHA and the Chemical Safety Board. The cause of the explosion is still unclear. As Higgins notes, “It’s not over, obviously.”

Shannon Pieper is managing editor for FireRescue magazine.