Hazardous materials responders at Hotzone 2010 witnessed today’s launch of the National Hazardous Materials Fusion Center’s web portal (Hazmat Fusion Center), a responder-driven data collection, analysis and education center. Representatives from U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) announced the portal’s launch at the conference’s general session.
“Hazmat responders have traditionally looked to each other as a source of learning, but have been largely restricted to local or regional networks,” said Chief Jack Parow, IAFC president and chairman of the board and a former member of the Massachusetts Hazardous Materials Team. “The Hazmat Fusion Center will now allow us to learn from hazmat technicians across the country, as well as to apply our knowledge to national-level policy discussion and training models that we can adapt to our local conditions. This not only benefits emergency responders, but the public we are sworn to protect.”
“PHMSA, in partnership with the IAFC, is committed to improve the safety of every emergency responder, protect the public and infrastructure, enhance the capabilities of the fire service, and increase response effectiveness,” said PHMSA Administrator Cynthia Quarterman. “The Hazmat Fusion Center will provide crucial information to decision makers at the federal, state and local levels on the transportation and delivery of hazardous materials.”
The internet-based portal marks a significant milestone in the broader hazmat community. It closes a historical gap in nationwide, hazmat-information sharing capabilities by providing responders with unprecedented opportunity to both contribute to and access a suite of readily available resources. This free resource serves as a one-stop shop for hazmat-response information, including training packages, reports, incident-based case studies, statistics, trends, alerts, recommendations and peer-to-peer networking.
The portal was designed with a consistent method of information collection to support information sharing across jurisdictions and levels of government and to support both individual and national-level needs. The secure incident reporting system is available for hazmat teams to enter, manage and analyze their own incident reports while allowing the Hazmat Fusion Center to create a national picture of hazmat response and disseminate regional and national hazmat trends and statistics.
“It is very important that those of us in the hazardous materials response community from around the nation are able to share information with each other,” said Bill Hand, training coordinator for the Harris County (Tex.) Fire Marshal’s Office and one of hundreds of responders who contributed to the portal’s development. “The National Hazmat Fusion Center is making that possible by bringing together in one location the resources that we need to access this critical information.”
The portal is the central element of the Hazmat Fusion Center, a program established and supported through a cooperative agreement between PHMSA and IAFC. The program—which has adopted the tagline Responders Helping Responders—was created using a bottom-up building process based on the needs and the active input of the hazmat response community.
The Hazmat Fusion Center also includes the already-established Regional Incident Survey Teams (RIST) and an operations center currently in development. RIST members are local responders in each of the five PHMSA regions who have volunteered to be trained and dispatched after major incidents, at the request of the jurisdiction, to assist in collecting lessons learned and analysis of the event.
Registration Now Open
Emergency responders must register either an individual or agency user to access secure portions of the portal. Registered responders may view full RIST survey reports, smart practices and lessons learned and may participate in the hazmat discussion forum and bulletin boards. Agencies that respond to hazmat incidents may register to use the Hazmat Fusion Center’s incident-reporting system. Registration is free.
For more information, visit the Hazmat Fusion Center online at www.hotzone.org or email hazmatfusion@iafc.org.
National Hazmat Fusion Center to Launch Web Site
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