Two hazmat specialists are looking across a concrete drive toward an innocuous-looking warehouse. A door on the side of the warehouse opens and an instructor walks out. A sinister-looking green mist and a roar of machinery follow him. The door swings shut behind the instructor as he walks over to the specialists and asks, “Are you ready?” One replies, “Had our briefing. Seems easy enough — go inside, do a victim search and extricate; if no victims, then locate the leaking drums, dam and dike, and take samples for analysis. Easy money.”“A cake walk,” says the other.

The instructor looks at them and smiles. “Right on. That’s what I like to hear,” he says. “Now remember, move carefully, be safe, and make sure your flashlights are good. The floor is as slick as snot and it will be hard to see. Good luck.” Pulling down the vapor-proof zippers, the hazmat specialists finish suiting up. They are instantly aware of the 20° increase in temperature and the suffocating, tropical environment of 100% humidity.

As the specialists approach the warehouse door, the sound becomes much louder. The first specialist slowly opens the door. A cloud of mist pours out. The dark roar and rumble of machinery and engines envelop them. They step in, carefully pulling their equipment in behind them. They turn to evaluate their new environment as the door swings shut behind them.

Darkness descends and their eyes fight to adjust. Pockets of light, surrounded by a swirling thick fog of green and orange vapor illuminate the darkness. But even with these few lit areas, visibility remains near zero.

The specialists wipe at their faceplates; it’s hard for them to tell if the faceplates of their Level A hazmat suits are fogging up on the inside because of the mounting moisture in their suits, or if it’s condensation on the outside from the 5-foot layer of vapor churning around them. They shine their flashlights into the fog, but to no avail. Faint outlines of barrels and cylinders line the walls and floor, seeming to hover in islands of colored mist. Off to the left, they hear the low rumble of something boiling in a vat. The specialists begin to move slowly toward the faint outline of barrels; they move carefully, scanning for victims through the thick fog.

As they get closer to the cluster of barrels, they see a collapsed shelf with several barrels lying on the floor. “On air,
5 minutes,” sounds over their radios. The specialists continue their task of searching for victims and trying to locate the leaks. Inch by inch they move, as the noise hammers at their senses and they fight the feelings of claustrophobia created by the thick vapors, heat and restrictive nature of their suits. “On air, 10 minutes,” the entry team leader reports from outside the warehouse. The specialists take time to report in. Yelling over the noise, they attempt to give meter readings and status updates.

Their search continues in the thick vapor. “On air, 15 minutes,” announces their radio. They conclude their search of the area around the fallen barrels, with no victims or leaks found.
They move on to the upright barrels. “On air, 20 minutes,” crackles the radio. The specialists are getting flustered and signs of exhaustion are apparent. The noise is making it hard for them to think and to communicate. Their vapor-suit masks are fogging terribly now, as the anti-fog shields are unable to keep up with the ever-increasing sweat that’s rapidly filling the triple-gloved hands and rubber boots of the suit. The radio reports, “On air, 25 minutes.” Their search is becoming more erratic. Having apparently given up on the victim search,they now obsess on finding the leak. “On air, 30 minutes — entry team, come on out” the entry-team leader announces over the radio. “I’m going to send in the back-up team.”

There is a long pause on the radio. “Copy,” replies one of the specialists with disappointment in her voice. “Wait! I found it! I found the leak,” her partner shouts. He’s squatting in the thick fog, his flashlight pointing at a small stream of yellow fluid pouring out six inches from the bottom of one of the upright barrels. “Copy, you’ve located the leak, go ahead and mark the area with glow sticks, but I still want you to come out,” the leader replies. “You’ve been in there too long — let the back up team take it.”

The two specialists look at each other; then, one motions to the other that it is time to go. Before departing, they finish their immediate tasks; one cracks a glow stick and places it by the small leak while the other collects a sample. After a short pause, they decide to turn the barrel over so that the pinhole through which the fluid is escaping is facing upward, with the idea that it will stop the leak. Now, moving quickly but still carefully, they weave back through the maze of barrels and cylinders to the exit. Finally, with one last look, they turn and walk into the bright sunshine outside.

Inside, two instructors stand in the thick vapor, looking at the now-overturned barrel. The first instructor shines his light to the top of the barrel where the two fill holes are evident; one is capped but the other is not. Yellow liquid now is sloshing out of the open bunghole. So, instead of the little pinhole leak, the liquid gushes from a 2.5-inch hole. The other instructor shines his light at the missed, groaning manikin (victim) on the forklift. The instructor chuckles and shakes his head — it’s always the basics. He turns and flashes his light at the control booth. The floating islands of glowing green-orange mist and the incessant roar abruptly vanish. The warehouse is suddenly illuminated. The roar of engines is replaced by the soft hum of large overhead lights. The control-room operator appears at the top of the stairs with the DVD of the entry.

In the after-action meeting, the good, the bad and the ugly will be seen by all in brutal HD clarity. This is when the true learning will take place. This is where others will see their work with fresh eyes and point out things that they hadn’t noticed. This is when the memories will be permanently hardwired into their rains.

Where Backdraft Meets Hazmat Training

Welcome to the DelValle (Calif.) Regional Training Center. It is one of the first full-immersion training (FIT) facilities in the world. It is the collective brainchild of retired Los Angeles County Fire Department Chief P. Michael Freeman, current Chief Darryl L. Osby, Deputy Chief John B. Tripp, Deputy Chief Mike Metro and Div. Chief Timothy J. Ottman. It embraces teaching methods that engage more of the body’s senses, thus increasing the likelihood of multiple imprints on the brain.

The process by which an individual uses past experiences to handle similar situations in the future is called situational modification. When confronted with differences between two situations, the individual modifies the decisions made during the previous experience to come up with solutions for the somewhat different problem. Finding a teaching style that would exploit this characteristic of the brain was the key. Enter multi-sensory learning. Because almost every sense is engaged, the memory is saved with cross-references that can be used as tags to help access that previous memory when needed. Multi-sensory learning long has been used with autistic children and others with learning disabilities with great success.

Another important objective of the FIT program is to prevent knowledge degradation, one of the inherent shortfalls of high-intensity, low-frequency operations. A hazmat specialist must learn thousands of different steps and procedures, for hundreds of pieces of equipment, meters and tests — and he has to be able to perform every step flawlessly. To perform just one step incorrectly could prove fatal. But the reality remains that out of that huge, vast array of equipment that most hazmat squads carry for that one bad day, 99% of the items may be used only once over the course of an entire career. In this regard, the old adage still applies: “If you don’t use it, you lose it.” Without familiarization, skills and memories can become decayed or corrupted. But with growing budget demands and shrinking resources, the ability to prevent this degradation with training seems to be all but impossible. Then, in 2006, the winds of fortune briefly changed and all the right factors came into alignment — and a hopeful dream began to take root.

Specifically, partnering communities in Los Angeles County embraced Aristotle’s observation that “the whole is more than the sum of its parts” — and pooled their grant resources in order to create the ultimate training facility on a 160-acre tract in the northern part of the county. The land was familiar to the fire department, as it had been used for more than half a century to train new recruits. On one side was a refinery-leak and a flash-over prop; on the other side were props that simulated collapsed buildings for urban-search-and-rescue training.

Bttn. Chief Michael D. Flocks led the collaboration of top Hollywood special-effects professionals and top hazmat experts to create the most realistic hazmat training facility ever seen. Imagine the movie Backdraft meeting your worst hazmat nightmares. The resulting project produced a training prop that can mimic almost any industrial hazmat warehouse incident imaginable — earthquake damage; leaking pipes, tanks and cylinders; reactive dip tanks spewing acid; and exploding drums.

Within a stone’s throw of this warehouse is an exact replica of a four-lane stretch of freeway, complete with a leaking, flaming, rolled-over tanker truck, which is surrounded by honking traffic and crushed cars.

Both props are designed to assault four of the five senses: sight, sound, touch and smell. More than 20 carefully mimicked fragrances can be released into the air, from the freshly mown hay scent of phosgene, to the pungent odor of chlorine, to the unmistakable smell of gasoline. Each prop is consequence driven: if you do the correct action, things get better; if the wrong action is taken, things will get worse. The ultimate goal was to have the ability to provide all-hazards training, including weapons of mass destruction, to anyone from the first on-scene law-enforcement officer to the technical expert.

More high-tech props are in the works. With its enormous capability of scenarios and its multi-sensory approach, the training center is capable of exposing students to a lifetime of experiences in a few short hours. More importantly, it is creating durable memories that can be relied upon later, when needed. A tough day at DelValle will be remembered and because of it, a life will be saved. It will be then that its true value will be revealed.

Randy Alva is a captain with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, where he serves as hazmat coordinator in the homeland security section of the Special Operations Division.

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