AFC Hazardous Materials Worker Training

AFC PROGRAM SUMMARY With this application, the Alabama Fire College (AFC) Workplace Safety Training Program (WST) proposes to continue delivering model NIEHS-funded training to two worker populations – members and employees of Native American tribes nationwide and Public Safety Personnel within the southeastern U.S. Both target populations face significant health and safety risks due to potential exposure to hazards during (1) emergency response to uncontrolled releases of hazardous materials (hazmats), (2) emergency response to disasters caused by accidental hazmat releases caused by severe weather events or man-made hostile events, and (3) work assessing and remediating uncontrolled hazardous waste dumps. They also face highly dangerous illicit “laboratories” producing drugs, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or other harmful agents. All these emergencies represent significant hazards to the health and safety of the responders and the communities they serve. The 574 federally recognized Native American tribes include 2.4 million members living in the contiguous 48 states and Alaska on over 56 million acres of land through which run hundreds of thousands of miles of rivers, roads, and railroad rights-of-way, making transportation accidents a significant threat. Additionally, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 76,420 firefighters, 54,400 emergency medical technicians and paramedics and 150,590 police and sheriff’s patrol officers in the southeastern states where the program has been most active: Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina. AFC will be joined by Native American Fish and Wildlife Society to promote the proposed training to tribal emergency response personnel. AFC/WST will use the growing network of contacts developed over its 36-year history (as WST) as well as the broader AFC’s leadership in North American Fire Training Directors and other networks of training providers to carry training to public sector responders. This training will include existing courses in topics such as hazardous materials emergency response (Awareness, Operations, Technician, Incident Commander levels), incident command systems, air monitoring, mass casualty incident triage, confined space rescue, illicit laboratory response, hostile event response, and responder safety during natural and man-made disasters. Hazardous waste worker initial and refresher training will be included the training plan. The training will be delivered directly by AFC instructors and through secondary training by trainees who take the training back to their tribes and local agencies. AFC instructors are projected to directly train over 2,100 Native American responders and over 3,100 public sector responders in both programs. In addition, peer trainers will use AFC materials to train an additional 1,875 of their peers. In total for the five years, AFC projects to conduct over 395 classes to over 7,075 trainees in 112,900 contact hours through direct and secondary training.