By Alexandra Mayer-Hohdahl
Lowell Sun (Massachusetts)
Copyright 2006 MediaNews Group, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Formaldehyde, isopropanol and toluene.
They are all highly flammable chemicals.
They may also very well be in your neighborhood.
With more than 4,400 facilities reporting hazardous waste activities in Middlesex County alone, the catastrophic explosion of a Danvers chemical plant on Nov. 22 was a stark reminder for many local fire chiefs about what they have to plan for.
“It has always been in the back of our minds,” Wilmington Fire Chief Daniel Stewart said.
“You’re always worried,” added Richard Mackey, fire chief in Tewksbury, where one company handles close to 200 chemicals.
But chiefs throughout the Lowell area also said that extensive training, and an involvement with the Regional Hazardous Materials Response Program is bound to pay off if a comparable explosion were to rock the Merrimack Valley.
“We have a good sense of what is involved for a big event. The bottom line is that a big event is a big event. You just have to adapt,” Littleton Fire Chief Steven Carter said. “Cooperation between local agencies is key. And then you just take a deep breath and go to work.”
Massachusetts has been divided into six hazmat districts since the mid-1980s, each district with a response team able to reach an emergency area within one hour. The teams also provide technical information and specialized equipment to local fire departments.
Greater Lowell fire officials are involved with the district which includes Danvers. Stewart, who is part of the response team and was among the local fire officials called to Danvers, said the Lowell area is “very fortunate to have the regional hazmat team.”
“It gives us one of the highest levels of preparedness in the country,” he said.
“The mutual aid system is really what you rely on,” Tewksbury’s Mackey noted. “And we know exactly what to do in a situation like (Danvers). It’s all laid out in the state plan.”
All the training in the world cannot derail a tragedy. Tewksbury firefighters had to handle a chemical explosion in February 1972, but lost one of their own, William McAllister.
Lowell Gas Co. employee Arthur Sutcliffe had backed his truck into a pipe at the company’s Tewksbury plant on Chapman Road while dropping off a load of propane. Leaking gas from the ruptured pipe reached an open flame.
The massive blast and ensuing fire killed Sutcliffe and McAllister, injuring another 22 people including 16 firefighters.
Situations such as these, when local firefighters are on the front lines, warrants training that goes beyond the regional team, several fire chiefs said.
“The important thing is knowing enough to back off when needed and call for help,” Littleton’s Carter said. “Every one of our firefighters has some level of hazmat training.”
That training extends even to communities that have a low chance of ever handling an emergency involving hazardous materials.
“We’re primarily a bedroom community and don’t have a chemical manufacturing plant. Obviously, the chance of a huge volatile explosion like the one in Danvers is slim,” Dracut Fire Chief Leo Gaudette said. “But our firefighters train daily on all different topics ranging from A to Z.”
But some communities are hampered by inappropriate staffing, Stewart said. He added that he is putting his hope into a fire substation that has been put “on the front burner” for North Wilmington.
“It’s a common universal problem,” Stewart said. “There are more firefighters needed to do the day-to-day job.”
Fire officials nevertheless make a point of regularly inspecting large local companies that handle hazardous chemicals, which the facilities are required to declare both to the state and the local fire department. During their visits, firefighters will look at everything from a building’s layout and its fire suppression system to the chemicals’ storage and the staff’s training.
Think it’s a lot to remember? Mackey agrees.
“We’re starting to put laptops in all of our apparatus, so that dispatchers can send diagrams of a particular building to them,” he said. “You do forget things about these buildings.”
But many greater Lowell fire chiefs agreed that companies handling hazardous materials in their mist might not be the primary concern. Rather, the highway system that crisscrosses many Merrimack Valley communities can be a veritable headache when it comes to hazardous materials.
“With fixed facilities, generally speaking, you know what you’re dealing with,” Stewart said. “But out on Route 93, you don’t know what’s out there.”
“My biggest concern, frankly, are the highways. We have Route 2 and 495,” Littleton’s Carter added. “You don’t even want to know some of the stuff that goes up and down those highways.”