A new piece of equipment will mean a faster response for the Moncton Fire Department’s HazMat response team.
Moncton City Council approved the purchase of a portable, solid-sample chemical-identifying spectrometer unit from Levitt Safety Ltd, for $202,606, with $50,000 of that coming from the Office of the New Brunswick Fire Marshall as part of its existing contractual agreement with the Moncton Fire Department for HazMat Response Services.
The unit will provide the team with a broad range of chemical identification capabilities, and accurate identification of chemical weapons, explosives, toxic industrial chemicals, common chemical precursors, and narcotics, with an on-board chemical library of more than 13,000 unique chemicals.
It can also positively identify materials that are exposed in a free space, contained in plastic bags,
transparent containers, or glass vials without the need for opening the container.
This new piece of equipment can also be brought inside the building where is incident is, instead of having to take the chemical off-site.
Fire Chief Conrad Landry adds that the unit is also compatible with the HazMat teams in Saint John and Fredericton.
He adds that, with the acquisition of this new unit, the HazMat response team will be able to identify and begin to mitigate situations without delay. Without it, the department would have to wait for Fredericton or Saint John HazMat teams to come and identify these chemicals, delaying the process by up to six hours.
