Polk County (Fla.) Fire Rescue’s hazmat team recently sent some photos of their HazSim units in action or, more accurately, preparing for action.
gas meter
Polk County’s hazmat team covers a lot of ground. They have a response area of more than 2,000 square miles with more than 700,000 population; all protected by 60 hazmat team members.
The team faces everything from hazmat situations brought on by natural disasters like hurricanes to manmade threats like heavy phosphate mining. Being one of the older hazmat teams, formed in 1973, and spread across such a large area, it is no surprise they have a range of gas meter models.
Custom setup
Rather than training their team members and firefighters with a “one size fits all” approach, Polk County’s hazmat team went the extra mile to configure their HazSim units to mirror each of their different gas meters. The custom setup is fairly simple, it can be done in-house and take about half an hour.
That small amount of setup time and effort lets firefighters and hazmat team members train on HazSim configured to look and behave just like the meters they use on every hazmat call. This means they won’t be wasting valuable training time familiarizing themselves with a new meter, and the evolutions will build confidence and competence in the equipment they use.
