Caution: Children At Work

I really like chemistry and I have sometimes thought that it might be fun to go to HazMat school.  But, more often than not, exceedingly more often, Hazmat calls are long and boring and uninteresting and don't involve much chemistry.

As a general rule, it's not a good idea to keep a group of adult 12 year olds (AKA firemen) bored and uninterested.

This time we got called out for a hazmat involving a rail car full of dry carbon powder, the stuff that goes into computer ink cartridges.  The product was somehow smoldering or having some form of reaction inside the container car.  It had actually melted the vacuum tube that was being used to offload the stuff into the warehouse.  We took some temperature readings with our TIC from the outside and it was definitely heating up in there, plus the car itself was warm to the touch.  That's not good.  As a precautionary measure we got some hoselines in place.  The hydrant was about 200 feet away so we stretched 225 feet of 5" large diameter supply hose and then pulled 150 feet of 1 3/4 inch attack hose to one side of the car and 250 feet of 2 1/2 inch hose to the other side. 

The hazmat team arrived, suited up and went up on top of the car, popped the hatches and took some readings of the product itself.  It was over 700 degrees inside.  There was no smoke, flames, or gasses present though.  It was essentially acting like a giant powdered charcoal briquette.  After much deliberation and contacting of subject matter experts it was decided that the rail car should first be moved to a more open space away from the building before taking any action.  This involved moving two other cars first.  The only means of moving the cars was to push them on down the track using forklifts.  And since firefighters live in a state of suspended adolescence and we'd been standing around with nothing to do for far too long we started rifling through our turnout pockets for loose change to put on the tracks as the cars rolled slowly past.  Yes, we are children and yes we get bored easily.

 

To steal a line from a fellow fire blogger: A child stopped a firefighter in the store and told him, "I want to be a fireman when I grow up".  The firefighter responded, "Sorry son, you can't do both".

In the end the car was moved, the hazmat team sent home, and an employee was sent to get four to five hundred pounds of dry ice to put in the car and create a CO2 blanket to cool and smother the product.  That part I actually wish I could have seen.  Instead, we reloaded our hundreds of feet of unused hose and went back to the station.

We were on scene for a little over five hours and had to return a few hours later to make sure the clean up company showed and that they had posted a fire watch.  I think I'll skip Hazmat school after all..