Israel’s New HAZMAT Training Facility

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The first class of students, including fire fighters, IDF soldiers and police officers, graduated from the Israeli Fire Fighting and Rescue Authority’s new Hazardous Materials School.

The new 2013 emergency response laws gave the authority responsibility over several new areas, once of them is HAZMAT training. The purpose of the new facility, the only one of its kind in Israel, is to offer hazardous materials training to fire fighters, police, army soldiers and others.

According to Fire Fighting and Rescue Authority representatives “Thousands of materials are officially recognized worldwide as hazardous. Hundreds are included in the Israeli list, and incidents involving hazardous materials are common. Gas leaks in gas stations, for examples, are defined as HAZMAT incidents, and so are cooking gas leaks, cooking gas container explosions, traffic accidents involving chemical tankers, clouds of dangerous materials over populated areas, incidents on trains and in naval ports, several pesticides in agriculture, events involving explosives and ammunition in the army – all these and more are defined as HAZMAT incidents.”

iHLS – Israel Homeland Security

Training facility personnel explained that the authority is now responsible – by law – for knowledge involving these incidents. Students come from various emergency organizations and include paramedics, the IDF, the police, Home Front Command and HAZMAT officers in various organizations. The training programs are adapted to suit the needs of specific clients.

The recent class included 18 students from the fire fighting authority, the IDF and the Israeli Police. 25 courses are planned for 2014, offering training for around 750 cadets from various Israeli emergency response organizations.