Money quote:
“…And when it does happen, the fire commissioner’s office has some interesting advice for firefighters. Roupp pauses to drive home the point: “You’re not going to put this fire out,” he tells the class.”
From the article:
“Talk to any emergency responder in a natural gas drilling-heavy area of Pennsylvania, and he’ll probably tell you it’s ‘only a matter of time’ before a Marcellus Shale well blows up.
Whether it’s the anticipated ‘big one,’ or day-to-day injuries on site, the natural gas boom is creating new challenges for firefighters. StateImpact Pennsylvania’s Scott Detrow looks at what the state Fire Commissioner’s Office is doing to prepare emergency responders for when the call arrives.
In Lock Haven, Clinton County, about 20 emergency responders are sitting in a fire hall, learning the details of how a natural gas well is “fracked.” A voiceover explains the details in a video, as muzak plays in the background: “It takes over 350 pieces of pipe, weighing nearly 87 tons, to drill a 10,500-foot well,” the voice explains.
The four-hour course is offered by the state fire commissioner’s office, and funded by a grant from the Marcellus Shale Coalition, which represents the drilling industry in Pennsylvania. It’s designed to teach firefighters the basics on what happens at a drilling pad, in case they ever need to respond to an emergency there.
In addition to drilling 101, instructor Skip Roupp lays out the dangers. “Again, hazards,” he says. “High pressure, high temperature gasses and liquids and hoses. Tripping over cables, hoses and pipes.”
Roupp – who works as Bradford County’s deputy emergency management director – stresses most of the calls that come from a well pad will be typical construction accidents. The major well fire, he says, is a one in a thousand event. “Which, living in Bradford County, scares the heck out of me, because we’re getting close to two thousand wells. So that means, if you follow that logic out, we’re due for a major blowout at some point.”
“It probably will happen,” he adds.
And when it does happen, the fire commissioner’s office has some interesting advice for firefighters. Roupp pauses to drive home the point: “You’re not going to put this fire out,” he tells the class. “
