Calif. Fire Agencies in Form Regional Hazmat Team
Firefighting agencies in the Yuba-Sutter area are banding together to form the first regional hazardous-materials (hazmat) response team.
"Up until now, we had six different fire departments with limited budgets working separately to get trained on dealing with hazardous materials -- and some of those departments only had one or two firefighters handling that work," Yuba City Fire Chief Pete Daley said in a statement.
A one-time $95,299 grant from the Department of Homeland Security will finance training and equipment purchases until January, according to Yuba City spokesman Bill Fuller.
"We're already looking at more grant opportunities to keep the funding going," Fuller said Friday.
More than 18 months of planning culminated in the formation of the regional response team. The participating fire departments include Yuba City, Marysville-CalFire, Linda, Olivehurst, Wheatland, Yuba and Sutter counties and Beale Air Force Base.
Yuba County Environmental Health has been tabbed to handle bookkeeping for team responses, while Yuba City Fire will manage the grant.
"The regional approach will allow the participating agencies to standardize equipment, training, policies and procedures to improve hazmat response capabilities in the Yuba-Sutter region," Fuller said.
Officials said participating agencies should be able to reduce expenses in their budgets as a result of the grant.
"As funding levels for area agencies have eroded, it became apparent that regionalizing hazmat response made financial sense," Marysville Fire Chief Mike Carr said in a statement.
The team was formalized two weeks ago after grant funding was finalized, but, as of Friday evening, had not responded to any calls for service.
Copyright 2012 - Appeal-Democrat, Marysville, Calif.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service