Mission Statement
To protect the citizens of Lincoln from chemical accidents by providing Lincoln Fire & Rescue based Hazardous Material Technician level service.

Benefits of the Hazardous Material Team

• Immediate response to chemical emergencies to insure public protection
  
• Professional emergency management with public safety the primary concern
  
• Availability of public emergency responders trained to meet OSHA safety requirements, avoiding the need for private sector duplication of cost and effort
  
• Public protection with cost recovery from chemical spillers and users of the service

How did the Hazardous Materials Team Come to exist?
Lincoln Fire & Rescue formed the Hazardous materials team in 1982, with a core group of personnel interested in accepting this challenge. The team built its response capability thru donated equipment and funds to equip a response vehicle. Training was gained by sending personnel to Texas A & M University, and other institutions for technician responder, and train the trainer training.

Who pays for this service?
A chemical emergency response is typically funded from the local tax base and the responsible parties are asked to reimburse local taxpayers when they spill chemicals. Through cost recovery ordinances or agreements, chemical spillers share in the cost communities incur as they develop specially equipped and trained staff to safely and effectively handle these emergencies.

What are some of the criteria of the team?
Hazardous Materials response regulation is the responsibility of the Federal Environmental Protection Agency. This agency has adopted OSHA standards for team members that require medical monitoring of personnel, specialized training and equipment. This fire department response represents a "value added" service to the Lincoln community that allows for rapid response and termination of risk.

This report that gives a haz mat incident response total for the last fiscal year at 127 incidents that involved approximately 49 hours of operations for all of the haz mat related call types. Links

• Health Department Community Hazardous Waste Collection