Falls Township police plugged the numbers into their computer, which has access to a national data bank on chemicals, and in 15 minutes, Hedden knew he had guessed right in ordering the evacuation. The chemical was silicon tetrachloride, an acid used in manufacturing microchips and for cleaning masonry, and it was, indeed, poisonous.
Welcome to the new world of volunteer firefighting - a world in which fire companies of a dozen or so members, with limited equipment and training, try to keep up with increasingly complicated and dangerous types of emergencies.
"Most volunteer fire departments are not equipped at all to deal with hazardous materials," said Warren E. Isman, chief of the Fairfax County, Va., Fire Department and president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.
"The type of equipment, its sophistication and its rare use make it a poor investment on the scarce resources of volunteers.
"They could ask local industry to help fund needed equipment," Isman said, "or they could band together in a regional team, or they could ignore the problem and take an ostrich approach and hope it goes away.
"Most have chosen the ostrich approach."
At the same time, Hedden and other firefighters say, a new federal law designed to help them respond to fires, leaks or spills involving hazardous materials has done little more than add to their problems.
Under the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986, any company that makes, uses, stores or disposes of hazardous materials must file forms called Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) on each material with state and county officials and local fire departments.
The result: Since the Oct. 17 deadline, fire companies and county officials have been inundated with thousands of documents that they say are almost
useless in emergencies.
