Copyright 2006 Boston Herald Inc.
By KEVIN ROTHSTEIN
The Boston Herald
Hub firefighters responding to a fire in a South End commercial building were saved from disastrous consequences when a man at the scene alerted them to stay away from the sixth floor, a laboratory where radioactive materials are used.
Good luck brought the lab worker to the building to warn firefighters, but soon jakes might not have to rely on luck. A city ordinance would tell them before they arrive at a fire what hazards might await.
“That might prove critical and life-saving to them and make our hospitals, laboratories and neighborhoods safer,” said City Councilor Stephen Murphy, who proposed the new ordinance. Murphy first filed the bill soon after the March 26, 2005, fire at a PerkinElmer laboratory building on Albany Street was started by an accidental radioactive chemical reaction. The fire exposed an information gap and also raised an alarm for opponents of a massive Boston University biohazard lab planned for the South End.
Murphy, the lab community and the Boston Fire Department’s Local Emergency Planning Committee hashed out the proposed ordinance over the past year. If passed by the spring, Boston’s 5,000 labs would have to register with the city by July 1. The ordinance would create a database of what is in each laboratory and its floor plans. The information could be accessed by firefighters on call through a mobile data terminal in each fire truck.