"It's just another way that Ohio is ahead of the curve ... I'm proud, as an industry person, that Ohio is considered a model in many of our safety programs," Reda said. "I think people should be proud to know that."
Each session costs about $20,000 to host -- OOGEEP will host five this year -- but it is all paid for by donations from oil and gas companies, Reda said. There is no cost for firefighters to attend.
Improving skills
The sessions are at the Wayne County Fire and Rescue Training Facility. The campus is like "Disneyland for firefighters," Reda said. They can improve their rescue skills in a life-sized maze, or they can simulate mass emergencies in a miniature city that fills up with smoke.The oil field training culminated with firefighters gathered around a 100-barrel oil tank. The tank was filled with crude oil and water, and there were four lines continuously pumping gas to the tank.
Firefighters used a torch to set the tank ablaze, then took turns battling the flames in teams, learning how to push back the fire and heat using a fog spray, which is more fanned out than a direct stream.
At the end of the training, firefighters doused the tank with class B foam, which knocked down the flames in about five minutes.
New Concord Fire Department Chief Brent Gates has been an instructor for the oil field emergency training for six years. The three biggest lessons he tries to pass on to trainees are to use teamwork, including multiple firefighters on a single hose; to work with surrounding agencies to bring in as much manpower as possible; and to use caution, he said.
Gates tells firefighters to treat oil field emergencies like hazardous chemical situations.
"We very honestly stress the teamwork," he said. "Listen to the oil companies; they're the experts."
A drilling-rig fire isn't very likely, Gates said. In fact, he thinks he's more likely to be called to a rig for something like a worker having a heart attack or falling off a ladder.
It can't hurt to be ready for all kinds of situations, he said.
"I have to be prepared, and I have to understand the equipment, even going in on an EMS call," he said. "This class here gives the opportunity for people to do that. They walk away with a lot of knowledge, a lot of resources and a lot of information."
Cambridge firefighter Matt Stiffler was at the training with a group of four co-workers. Stiffler has been a firefighter for 19 years, he said, including four at Cambridge. A lot of the training material was review for him, but it was good to have it reinforced, he said.
"The more guys we can get trained at our station, the better it's going to be for us and the community," he said. "We all have limited experience with the rigs and things like that, but to actually be up close and personal, that's a plus."
Stiffler's co-firefighter, Scott Elliott, has been at the Cambridge Fire Department more than than 11 years, he said. Along with the firefighting tips, Elliott also learned a lot about the drilling process, he said, so he now feels better prepared to help educate the public about controversial issues such as hydraulic fracturing.
A rare scenario
There are 65,000 active wells in Ohio and the oil and gas industry produced more than 70 billion cubic feet of natural gas in 2011, Reda said, but even with those numbers, emergencies are rare, she said.That's because of training sessions such as this past weekend's and because Ohio has some of the most stringent drilling laws in the country, she said.
"It's really about the industry being good corporate stewards," she said. "Again, it's about being proactive instead of reactive."
OOGEEP doesn't have a way to quantify the number of oil and gas emergencies in Ohio per year because too many situations are lumped together -- for example, a rig fire, a gasoline-station fire and a natural-gas leak in a private home all would be lumped in the same category, Reda said. But if she had to guess, Reda would say there are fewer than five oil and gas emergencies per year, she said.
The No. 1 cause for emergencies is vandalism, she said, with lightning strikes taking the No. 2 slot.
Aside from handling emergencies, the training sessions also teach firefighters about oil field equipment in order to distinguish between emergencies and non-emergencies, Reda said.
For example, sometimes drilling equipment makes loud noises, and people call the fire department. Or they see bright lights on a rig at night and call the fire department. Firefighters need to understand how the equipment works so they know what is and isn't normal, Reda said. That way, a department isn't rushing all its resources to a drilling site to check on "equipment doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing."
Nothing new
OOGEEP started its oil field emergency workshops about 12 years ago, partially in response to a tank fire. Lightning hit the tank, starting a small fire, Reda said, and when firefighters arrived they saw red and immediately started blasting water.The water only flooded the tank and surrounding dike, however, shooting a stream of flaming oil out into the field.
What firefighters should have done is applied some coolant and allowed oil and gas personnel to shut off the gas flow, Reda said. But, in their defense, they had no way of knowing that, she said.
So, industry leaders decided it was time to launch a training program, and it has been going strong ever since, Reda said. To date, more than 800 firefighters have been trained through the program, from 36 Ohio counties as well as seven other states: Indiana, Illinois, North Dakota, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas and Kansas.
OOGEEP had to increase the number of sessions to five this year because of increased Utica Shale interest, Reda said, but the training itself is nothing new.
