On August 13, members of the Wilmington Fire Department / NC RRT-2 Hazardous Materials Response Team finished first at the annual Haz-Mat Challenge held during the South Atlantic Fire Rescue Expo in Raleigh. Team members were Master Firefighter J.W. Brown, Master F.F. W.A. Kraus, Master Firefighter D.C. Mickler, Firefighter C.N. Cook and Team Coordinator Capt. J.H. Stephenson. This is the second consecutive year and the third time in the last five years that Wilmington’s team has won the competition.
The competition consisted of various stations that simulate hazards the technicians may face on an emergency call. The stations included capping a leaking valve on an overturned highway fuel tanker, over-packing and transporting a leaking drum, replacing a ruptured disk on a railroad tank car valve, removing a downed victim, assembling a radiological meter and locating a radiological source and obtaining a liquid sample from a storage drum.
Team members also had the opportunity to network with fellow technicians from around the state and discuss recent incidents, lessons learned and planning for additional training opportunities in the coming year.
Wilmington’s Haz-Mat team competed against teams from Fayetteville, Greenville, Greensboro, Raleigh, Williamston, Monroe and High Point. Wilmington had a winning time of 9 minutes, 12 seconds.
In addition to bringing the competition’s traveling trophy back to Wilmington, the team also was awarded a four gas air monitoring meter.
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