What are people thinking? HazMat incident at FireHouse

I just read an article in the El Paso Times that someone took a quart bottle of Picric Acid to an El Paso Fire House on the East Side and gave it to them. Now let me think correctly... Picric Acid = Nasty Explosive if it has crystalized in the least bit. Those are shock sensitive crystals at that. Must be a sight to see your own HazMat response team come to your station which has now become the HOT ZONE in the incident. You never know what someone is going to walk up to your station with and hand off to you. Thank God it did not crystalize while with the EPFD HM team. They ended up calling a civil HM disposal service to come and take care of it.

FF Schoen
God Bless and Never Forget

Here is the link:
http://cms.firehouse.com/content/article/article.jsp?id=60762&s...

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Permalink Reply by Brian Dumser on August 30, 2008 at 1:46pm

"This reminds me of the time we had a bomb "dropped off" at the station one night!"

I gotta hear that story, Bill!

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Permalink Reply by Don Zimmerman on September 1, 2008 at 5:47pm

We had this happen at a building a few years ago. Called up a lab tech to take care of. On the other hand shock sensitive is very time intensive and best done outside in a big empty lot.

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Permalink Reply by Engineco913 on September 1, 2008 at 7:29pm

Tony, you would be amazed at the amount of crap the High School labs have in the storage facility. When i was in high school, our Physical Science teacher was teaching us about the properties of Sodium. This was capitolized when she took a cube out of the Kerosene it was stored in (in an airtight bottle) and with a pair of tongs threw it into a sink of water. The piece of sodium immediately burst into flames and zipped around the sink of water until it burned off.
Another example. A teach mixed some chemicals for a Parent orientation. He took a balloon and placed it over the test tube it was in. (catching the gasses) He then tied the end of the balloon and taped it to a yard stick. He then proceded to light a bunson burner and swung the balloon over the open flame. The balloon burst into flames explosively. The Parents were advised it was exactly how the Hindenburg happened.
Point of the matter is you never know the Chemicals in the lab, or the ability of the teachers to create new chemicals that react differantly. Be safe out there, and request a walk through.

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Permalink Reply by Mike Schlags (Captain Busy) Retd on September 1, 2008 at 8:48pm

Years ago, before the local bomb squad decided that it probably was a good idea to talk to the hazmat team when dealing with chemical disposal, they elected to deal with chemicals that had become shock sensitive or at least showed signs of crystalization. They decided to do what most of the arcticles on Google indicate for handling these incidents which is to use the robot to blow up the container. I can't remember exactly what the chemicals were but the decision was made to blow the materials up on the football field. Bottom line here was the football field having to be decontaminated... lessons learned. If you pick an open area, make sure that it's easy to remediate when your done...