Most people associate HazMat teams by their personal protective equipment (PPE), or suits.  There are 4 different levels of suits providing many different forms of respiratory and spill protection.  The 2 most commonly used are a Level A, which is a full encapsulated suit, and a level B which is a full splash suit but can be used with either and SCBA or protective respirator.

 

 

 

Underneath our Level A's and overtop our level B's when needed, we wear a self contained breathing apparatus, or SCBA.  The are specially rated for HazMat incidents (CBRN).  The masks we wear over our faces can hook up to either the air pack or special canisters that filter out contaminants at incidents that don't require SCBA's.  The bottles are rated to last 30 minutes, but it varies by person.

To determine what chemicals we are dealing with, we use many different meters and testing kits.  One of the most common are the HazKat® kits.  There are several different types of HazKat Kits.  Our team uses the Unknown Kit, Anthrax Kit, Meth Lab Kit, and WMD Kit.

Another piece of detection equipment used specifically for biological agents is called a RAMP system.  We recently acquired and were trained on the use of this system and have it deployed in our primary response unit.

 

Another common detector is the Draëger CMS Analyzer.  You place one of 55 different chemical specific chips into the machine and it will take the sample and tell you what you are dealing with.  The nice thing about the Draëger Analyzer is it is very portable.

 

The Searchcam EntryLink search and rescue camera is a very valuable tool in HazMat situations.  Although we constantly train and strive to be the best, we don't know everything.  This camera can be carried in by the entry team and the picture is transmitted wirelessly back to a monitor in the command post where experts who aren't able to make entry due to safety concerns can see exactly what is going on in the hot zone.

 

Every HazMat incident needs to have a decontamination area.  Sometimes, the chemicals are so dangerous that runoff water from the decontamination also needs to be contained.  Often times the weather doesn't cooperate as well.  The HazMat team can utilize large tents specially designed for these situations.  These tents, some of which are as large as garages, are inflated by the air packs work on members backs and can be equipped with heat, air conditioning, water heat, air purifying, and other options.