Refresher course focuses on highway incidents

Members of the Waupaca County HazMat Team recently completed their annual hazardous materials refresher training on Saturday, April 16, at their training facility west of Manawa.

The eight hour annual refresher training is a requirement through NFPA 472 and OSHA 49 CFR 1910.120 standards.

The annual training was conducted by instructors from Nicolet Technical College in Rhinelander, plus staff from Appleton Fire Department (Wisconsin HazMat Response System Type 2 team) and the Dangerous Goods Officer from Canadian National Railroad. This year’s refresher training focused on response to highway transportation incidents.

The scenario for the full dress out exercise was a semi delivering chemicals to a local business. The driver felt his load in the trailer shift, stopped to investigate and noticed something leaking from the trailer and called 911.

Local fire department responded and requested the County HazMat team. HazMat team members obtained the shipping papers, and after confirming what chemicals were in the trailer, made entry into the trailer, and eventually contained the leaking product.

Special appreciation to Todd Daanen of Appleton Fire Department and Ken Collins from CN Rail for assisting with the training. Also appreciation to Nolte’s Service & 24 Hour Towing of Oshkosh and Valley Express, LLC of Neenah for proving the team with a semi tractor and trailer for use during the training.

The Waupaca County HazMat Team was established in 1992 and has been providing hazardous materials response to the local fire departments in Waupaca County. The team also is contracted with both Portage and Waushara counties to provide hazardous materials response to their counties.

In 2014, the Waupaca County HIRT was selected as a Type 3 Team with the Wisconsin Hazardous Materials Response System.