Mitchell Kaminski
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
On Wednesday, the Columbia Fire Department was dispatched roughly 30 miles to Auxvasse after a mutual aid request for the department’s Hazardous Materials team.
According to Matt Walton of the North Callaway Fire Protection District, a homeowner on the 2000 block of Route E had picked up an order from a retail store, but when they returned home, they found that the bags were melting.
The Columbia Fire Department added that a wet substance melted material on a coat, caused skin irritation and left a countertop discolored after contact with cleaning products. Walton said the homeowner did not have any materials that would have contained the chemical, and it was believed to have come from another order placed in the same bin earlier or a bin next to their order.
That material turned out to be sulfuric acid, prompting Callaway County to request assistance from CFD. Six members of the department, including a battalion chief and four certified HAZMAT technicians, responded to the scene and returned two hours later.
CFD firefighters collected a sample from the car that had been carrying the grocery bags and identified the substance as a 25% sulfuric acid solution. Team members decontaminated the cargo mat and affected areas of the vehicle, while North Callaway disposed of the bags and coat.
“It wasn’t a full deployment of our HAZMAT team, but it was more of a short team. Firefighters that had knowledge, skills, and abilities, and we had the technology to go out and determine what the agent was, make sure that it wasn’t anything that could have long-term impacts to the person that was contaminated with the agent,” CFD Chief Brian Schaffer said. “The investigation is being handled by the Callaway County authorities.”
The incident highlighted one of the seven mutual-aid agreements the Columbia Fire Department has in the area, which includes Boonville, Moberly, Fulton, Jefferson City and Centralia fire departments, as well as Mexico Department of Public Safety and the Southern Boone County Fire Protection District.
While no money is exchanged for the services, Schaffer said the signed agreements help create a playbook that outlines the incident command and rules each agency has to follow. However, the Columbia Fire Department can still bill other agencies for materials used in hazardous-material responses.
The agreements are considered standard practice, an administrative measure that solidifies that departments can assist neighboring cities when needed and do not require yearly renewal.
“We keep it open so it eliminates the influence of bureaucracy and politics. It’s signed until one of the agencies wants to pull out and does the notification, it continues on into perpetuity, and that just prevents politics from entering,” Schaffer said. “Where we do see changes is in the operations plan in terms of what we call things and what resources we have. We are adding two boats to our fleet in the coming months. That’s going to be something we’ll communicate to our mutual aid partners.”
While Columbia does not have a formal mutual-aid agreement with North Callaway County, a department spokesperson said it will provide assistance whenever possible, particularly for specialized incidents.
“We exist on an island. We’re in Mid-Missouri. We are the largest department, we have 100% career (firefighters), we have the resources to mitigate all risks, but anybody can have a bad day,” Schaffer told ABC 17 News. “So what we want to do is make sure that all of the ancillary communities or the communities that touch that we work with have that same level of response when they are having a bad day. A lot of the people that work and shop and participate in Columbia activities live in the suburbs and farther out, so it’s good practice.”
Schaffer added CFD benefits from the agreements when they are “having a bad day,” giving the department an extra layer of protection.
“We will call Jefferson City and Boonville, and Fulton to come in and help us,” Schaffer said. “It doesn’t happen very often, but that doesn’t mean it won’t.”
The department also has a statewide mutual aid agreement that Schaffer says adds a third layer of protection, used for large scenes such as a train derailment. The statewide agreement is also useful if there is an incident that Columbia doesn’t think it can handle. The Columbia Fire Department believes that these types of small mutual aid agreements help prepare them for larger-scale emergencies they might encounter.
“It just gets some of the challenges we may discover when we mobilize resources worked out so that everything works at 3 o’clock in the morning when you have a bad day,” Schaffer said. “We are a community fire department that recognizes the importance of being a part of Mid-Missouri. And that means taking the friendliness and the cooperation and the collaboration that we enjoy here as a greater mid-Missouri and put that in fire department speak. We talk about it, we do it, and that’s the way that we’re moving forward.”
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