Little General Store Propane Explosion - US Chemical Safety and ...

Little General Store September 2008
10. The junior propane service technician who was servicing to the tank on the day of the incident had no
formal training and did not recognize the defect in the withdrawal valve. He was also working alone
even though he had been on the job for only one and a half months.
11. Propane service technicians commonly do not receive emergency response training.
12. The propane industry’s primary training curriculum (the Certified Employee Training Program)
consists of procedures and materials for performing routine (non-emergency) tasks only.
13. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s and National Fire Protection Association’s
propane standards require training but do not include curricula, practical exercises, emergency
actions, or knowledge evaluation tools.
14. A propane emergency significant enough for fire department response is reported nearly everyday in
the United States. Only gasoline and natural gas are involved in more hazardous materials
emergencies.
15. 911 operators in the United States lack propane emergency guidance to help them collect important
information from callers, offer life-saving advice, and convey relevant information to first responders.
16. Minimal information on the nature of the incident was exchanged between the propane service
technician and the 911 operator. Therefore, the only information the 911 operator provided the Ghent
Volunteer Fire Department responders was the incident location and the “report of a propane leak.”
17. Firefighters in West Virginia are required to attend a minimum of four hours of hazardous materials
emergency response training as part of their initial training sequence but refresher training is not
required. The responding Ghent Volunteer Fire Department captain last attended a hazardous
materials response course in 1998.
18. Propane safety and emergency training is voluntary for fire department personnel in West Virginia.
None of the responders from the Ghent Volunteer Fire Department had specific training relating to
propane emergencies.
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