For this assignment, you will create an original, power point presentation 8 slides plus title and reference slides. you must also include any image(s) that you would use in the town hall meeting. The
Unit VII Background InformationAs the Washington Fire Department (WFD) fire and emergency services ( FES ) administrator , you
continually requested grants to restore funding to the department to increase the level of staffing in order
to attain a more effective level of respon se and a safer incident scene. The highest priority for the grant is
to comply with national standards promulgated by the National Fire Protection Association ( NFPA ) 1710 ,
which states that a minimum of four firefighters should be on the first arriving engine (or vehicle capable
of initi ating suppression activi ties). This increase of staffing levels to four per fire suppression apparatus
would improve automatic and/or mutual aid to surrounding fire departments. However, you have not been
successful in obtaining the grant and still respond with two firefighters o n the first due engine.
While working on the 1-year time line , you recognized the need for a special unit to respond to the rising
numbers of hazardous materials (HAZMAT) incidents in Washington and the surrounding communities.
You are working on steps to make s ure WFD compl ies with the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) regulations for HAZMAT response. Personnel have completed the awareness
level of training .
As you were formulating your plan, a tra in derailment occurred on a hill between the Washington R iver
and a main road leading to the nursing home. Over the years , the nursing home has flooded several
times when flash floods occurred , and sheets of water ran down the hill through the front doors of the
nursing home. The river is approximatel y four blocks west of the nursing home .
During the derailment , several rail cars containing sodium hydroxide (NaOH ) as a fluid solution were
extensively damaged with caustic soda leaking . The nursing home has approximately 120 residents with
many of them confined to their bed s. Many of the local residents in homes near the incident have already
evacuated their homes. Firefighters were notified of the concerns of the chemicals reaching ins ide the
nursing home based on past experience from the water with flash flooding .
Firefighters have not been trained to initiate any mitigation eff orts , and they entered the hot zone without
proper protective ensembles . Firefighters diked and channeled the caustic soda runoff away from the
nursing home toward the river , which cause d an environmental disaster , killing different species of fish .
This action save d multiple lives in the nursing home because it could not be evacuated in a timely
manner. A watch dog in the community who has been extreme ly critic al of the fire department and its
members immediately ran to the new s media after one of your firefighter s notified him of the fish kill and
the lack of training for hazardous material incidents .