Station 1902

[00:00] Jim Leer: Foreign.

[00:14] Chief Ed Mann: Warm Central Pennsylvania welcome to our station 1902 podcast.

[00:19] I'm your host, Ed Mann, Director of Training and Education for Providence.

[00:23] This podcast is just one way Provident gives back to those who serve their communities.

[00:30] Today I have the pleasure of talking to Jim Lear from Somerset, Pennsylvania.

[00:34] During one of our live Provident webinars. I asked people who have expertise in any specific area to let me know if they'd be a guest and Jim responded to that request.

[00:46] Jim,

[00:46] welcome to the show.

[00:48] I'm happy to have you as a guest. Please introduce yourself to our listeners.

[00:52] Jim Leer: Okay, thanks a lot Chief. As Chief said, my name is Jim Leir. I'm from Somerset, Pennsylvania, which is in southwestern Pennsylv,

[01:01] about an hour from Pittsburgh.

[01:03] Been in the volunteer fire service for 37 years.

[01:08] A member of the Somerset Regional Fire Department, which recently consolidated with another department.

[01:15] Been a local level state fire instructor for 28 years with majority of my focus on hazmat.

[01:22] My start in the fire service was when I was 16 years old and joined as a junior firefighter. Went on to get a associate in fire science and did about five years in municipal code enforcement.

[01:34] That eventually led me to the insurance industry where for the past 28 years I've been in insurance loss control,

[01:44] basically dealing with a working for a regional insurance company with 12 states,

[01:49] dealing anywhere from property to workers comp to product liability,

[01:54] auto and everything too. And I have a bachelor's and a master's degree in safety.

[01:59] Chief Ed Mann: Oh great. So you have a pretty broad background then.

[02:03] Jim Leer: Yes sir.

[02:04] Chief Ed Mann: So Jim,

[02:06] when I when you emailed me about being a guest for the podcast and doing a live webinar, you indicated you wanted to share your knowledge of gaseous powered vehicles such as compressed natural gas, cng,

[02:18] liquefied natural gas, LNG and propane. So let's start with cng.

[02:24] How prevalent are CNG powered vehicles becoming?

[02:28] Jim Leer: So if you kind of look at the statistics from the U.S.

[02:31] energy Administration,

[02:33] natural gas sold as an on road fuel vehicle has doubled in the past decade from 30 billion cubic feet in 2013 to more than 62 billion cubic feet in 2023.

[02:49] And as you know as being the commissioner at the time in the Commonwealth is when we had the Marcellus Gas boom.

[02:56] Chief Ed Mann: Yeah, I certainly remember that. So explain to our listeners what the characteristics of CNG are and how to identify a vehicle that might be using it.

[03:08] Jim Leer: Okay, Very simply, compressed natural gas is methane that we all in the fire service have learned about that is a source of fuel for heating in some of our It's a it's a natural gas.

[03:22] It's compressed.

[03:24] It's in cylinders that have an operating pressure to 3600 psi. So we're dealing with a flammability hazard and the pressure hazard associated with the gas.

[03:35] Essentially, the gas is stored in four types of containers,

[03:41] with the more common ones what's known as type 3 and 4. And as in the fire service, we have seen the evolution of how cylinders have changed, with the more popular cylinders being basically like a poly or a plastic air inner liner with a carbon fiber wrap that makes up the cylinders.

[03:59] As far as the cylinders, they can be at various locations on the vehicles, which I'm going to lead to. The next part is identifying these and way I like to promote with identification of these is go back to our basic hazmat 101 stuff, the seven clues.

[04:16] So where we're going to come across these is anywhere. Highways,

[04:20] fueling station, truck stops.

[04:22] One of the key things is identifying is recognizing the containers. Containers. One thing you'll find these things mount behind cabs, on roofs or anything like that. But recognizing another fuel source other than what we have typically see with diesel fuel or gasoline,

[04:39] as far as like marking and colors, A lot of this stuff is associated with branding or marketing. So a lot of these fleets will have certain things such as think green, think clean.

[04:51] We are running on burning natural gas placards as far as like placard and labels.

[04:58] These vehicles are required on the back rear side to have a very small decal for the lack of terms.

[05:07] So for compressed natural gas, it's a blue and white diamond decal that'll have CNG in it. Okay. And as one thing is, it's very small, may not be recognized depending on the incident.

[05:19] And that's where other key components come in, such as identifying the containers. The fuel management system system with the identification is our senses realizing that if one of these things are on fire, it's a different fire behavior.

[05:36] You may hear the leaking gas, you may see jet flames little or smoke burning.

[05:42] Then other things is just asking the driver if you're able to get any information from them.

[05:49] Chief Ed Mann: So let's say in a typical passenger car,

[05:53] would that be like located in the trunk? Is that the typical place you would find them or are they mounted elsewhere, Say, in a passenger car?

[06:01] Jim Leer: In a passenger vehicle, it's more. It would be found like in the trunk area with the emblem on the back. So yes, yes.

[06:09] Chief Ed Mann: All right. So along those same lines, what safety measures should firefighters take when dealing with an incident involving a vehicle powered by cng?

[06:20] Jim Leer: So the thing is we go back to our basically hazmat 101,

[06:25] do a thorough size up assessment, identification,

[06:29] resist rushing in, get a fuller picture. All right.

[06:33] A lot of these as we've known especially with the EV vehicles have what's called emergency response guidebook that we can reference and to help us identify where the fuel shutoffs and certain things associated with that.

[06:48] Also recognizing that we have the jet fire, we have the high pressure gas associated with this, ensure we wear our proper PPE self contained breathing apparatus. How we approach the vehicle, we approach at a 45 degree angle more for the jet fires that may be coming off the vents.

[07:09] Then just as any other vehicle incident, set the parking brake,

[07:13] chock the wheels, control the ignition sources and basically shut the fuel systems down if you're able to on that.

[07:21] Okay.

[07:23] And the idea is the key thing is to recognize that you have an alternative fuel involved. And the one thing I want to stress is that we talk about the cng.

[07:34] There may be this, it may be a BI fuel where it may be a diesel truck, but it also has CNG on it too.

[07:41] And just recognizing that you have them present on the incident.

[07:46] Chief Ed Mann: So if the CNG is venting, should the attempt be made to cool the tank to stop the venting or should we let it continue to vent?

[07:56] Jim Leer: You should let it continue to vent. All right. So one of the things that are a hazard associate with these compressed natural gas fuel system is that the vent system or the pressure relief device are, are thermally activated.

[08:11] So as we as the fire service seems to my experience is everybody wants to go to what they've learned in basic firefighting. If you have a cylinder and it's being exposed to fire, you hit it with copious amounts of water,

[08:25] hand streams. But with compressed natural gas, we do not want to do that because of the thermally activated device which the water cools that thermally active device and eventually the pressure fills up and we get a major failure of that incident of that container.

[08:41] Chief Ed Mann: Okay,

[08:42] so what should that, what, what could the leadership of a fire department do now to prepare for the day that they may have to deal with an incident involving cng?

[08:51] I mean obviously we're doing this podcast which should put some ideas in the heads of fire department leadership.

[08:57] What else should they be doing to prepare for the day that this is going to occur in their first due area?

[09:04] Jim Leer: Build the relationships. If they have fleet vehicles in their communities, such as school districts may be using this or trucking operations,

[09:14] give them that phone call, ask them if they could bring a truck to the fire station or you go to their location just to look over the truck and familiarize yourself.

[09:24] Get the emergency response guidebooks out associated with the vehicle and learn how to use that.

[09:30] The one thing I like to promote with, with,

[09:33] especially with leadership is considering for these incidents that as part of your size up, no matter if it's a motor vehicle ACC or structure fire or any type of incident, is always considering alternative energy sources.

[09:47] Make it your full, make it part of your initial size up.

[09:51] Another thing is it could come down to where a lot of these incidents is. The chief officer to take some things off the plate might have to do it in the hazmat.

[10:00] What we have what's called a science or research person who can kind of collect information on the vehicle and communicate that to command and everything too.

[10:11] Some other things is just build those relationships with your, with your local county or hazmat or state response teams. The one thing about these vehicles that they're involved,

[10:21] you just can't let them go by the tow truck. Somebody has to secure the cylinders in the fuel system to make sure it's safe. So it's building relationship with your HAZMAT team, your towing and recovering services and also having the relationship with the fleet operations in your community that you know what to do with these things.

[10:44] Chief Ed Mann: Okay, great.

[10:45] So let's talk about liquefied natural gas or LNG now and we'll kind of repeat the same things.

[10:53] What are some of the characteristics and how do we identify any vehicles that are used in lng?

[10:59] Jim Leer: Okay, so LNG liquefied natural gas,

[11:03] these gonna be primary, primary on medium to heavy duty vehicles. All right,

[11:09] so it's liquefied natural gas, which means they, they liquefied through, through cooling the gas.

[11:17] All right.

[11:18] One of the key things about this too is that may not be a prevalent is it is non odorized due to the, the extreme cooling of this fuel.

[11:29] To get it to be a liquid, they cannot add the additive to it to make it odorized. All right,

[11:36] so one of the things that these trucks have on them is a built in flammable gas detector with a sensor in the engine compartment and the cab area.

[11:47] So that could be one clue going to basically the containers. All right. The containers or tanks for these vehicles look like doers. Okay. They're going to be typically mounted on the same areas of the trucks on the, where we find that saddle tanks on a diesel truck.

[12:06] All right. These are double walled stainless steel tanks that are either insulated or vacuum. Okay. And I Said it's roughly the size of it. So as far as identification, basically the same as we going with the C and G.

[12:20] The small decal in the back, you will find a decal on, on the tank itself. It'll say lng.

[12:28] Another thing is just building in here is recognizing different design features. Okay. Where you may not. Where the fuel goes, it may not be typical port where you put a nozzle.

[12:39] It may be a connection to refuel it. Identifying valves and everything too. So that's more of the differences identification. And said the key thing is identifying the Dewar type saddle tanks and that LNG decal on the vehicle.

[12:55] Chief Ed Mann: So along those same lines. And the safety measures that firefighters should take when dealing with an incident with LNG are the same with cng.

[13:05] Jim Leer: The only big major difference is cng. As I said, it's a thermally activated pressure safety device.

[13:13] LNG is a pressure activated device. Okay. Just the same as propane.

[13:19] So just same as with propane is if we have flames or heat impinging on the the tank, we can apply water to keep it cool and it will not interfere with that pressure relief device.

[13:32] And of course what we've been taught is avoid getting water close to that pressure relief device just in case it freezes over.

[13:41] Okay.

[13:42] One hazard that is associated with liquefied natural gas, that it's a cryogenic liquid is you got to be careful. And this is a new thing that was added to the 2024 ERG.

[13:55] There's what's called rapid phase transition,

[13:58] where if you do have a pool liquid or you apply water to this, due to the temperature of the water and the extreme coldness of the liquefied natural gas, you will actually get a like an explosive vaporization of the liquefied natural gas.

[14:16] So that's one of the little bit difference between LG and cng.

[14:21] Chief Ed Mann: So again,

[14:22] if the fire department leadership to prepare for one of these should probably do the same things if they know what's in your area. Get with the industry that's using it.

[14:34] Jim Leer: Yes. Yeah, get with the industry using it.

[14:37] Take the time and make sure your membership understands that terminology. The rapid phase transition and the harm at water can do it. And I would also use this as an opportunity is if your department has not done it in years,

[14:52] is review blevy the boiling liquid expansion vapor explosion. So that's one concern with LNG compared to cng.

[15:01] LNG does have that blevy potential.

[15:04] Chief Ed Mann: Okay.

[15:05] So I mean the.

[15:09] This stuff is becoming more and more prevalent. We're going to see More and more of it on the highway. And I mean, it's like the industry gets so far in front of the fire service and they create something new.

[15:21] And it's always kind of like the fire service is like,

[15:24] we discover this when we have an incident for the first time and it's like, wow, what's this?

[15:31] The challenges for the fire service with this,

[15:34] all these alternative fuels is becoming greater and greater,

[15:38] which means we need to be paying more attention today than we did in previous years. Would you agree with that?

[15:45] Jim Leer: Yes, I would agree.

[15:47] It's something, as you said, it seems like when something new comes out, the fire service is expected to deal with it.

[15:54] And that's through local,

[15:57] state, regional, national training, education,

[16:01] our social media, our websites give us more of that information that leadership can be used to build onto that too.

[16:09] Chief Ed Mann: Okay, so let's move on to propane.

[16:12] And again,

[16:14] what are the characteristics of the propane and how do we identify if a vehicle is using propane as an alternative fuel?

[16:23] Jim Leer: Okay,

[16:24] so one thing is it'll have a carbon steel tank on it. And usually the tank is located somewhere in the frame area down low.

[16:34] As with the. You will not find it on any roof due to propane being heavier than air. So you'll never find it mounted on a roof. So you're going to usually find it mount it somewhere low on the vehicle in the frame area.

[16:48] Just the same, it's. You're going to find that it's going to be a black diamond on the right rear of the vehicle. It's going to either have LPG in it or it may have propane in it.

[16:58] Another term that we may hear for propane vehicles is called auto gas. Okay. And this is just essentially a liquefied propane century. Liquefied gas through pressurization.

[17:10] And the tank, they have various types of tank, but it's very similar to what we find in somebody's yard or anything like that too. One of the things that they kind of promote with these propane tanks for these vehicles, that they're 20 times more puncture resistant than gasoline or liquid fuel tanks and can withstand four times the pressure of our standard thing.

[17:33] And just as the same thing as just recognizing that black diamond. Seeing the cylinder, the propane is odorized. And just one thing to stress, don't use odor as an exclusive indicator if there's a leak or not a leak or the fire or rescue potential.

[17:51] Chief Ed Mann: So at the end of the day, what I'm hearing here is that in order for fire departments and the leadership of Fire departments to prepare for this is they need to get hooked up with a guide like yourself and spend eight or 16 hours in a classroom and learn about these alternative fuels now and do some refresher training on.

[18:13] Because I mean one, I mean, let's face it, especially with the volunteer fire service, you know these, if you're the fire chief and I was a volunteer fire chief with all the things you have to try to stay on top of anymore.

[18:25] So, you know, you educate me today on cng,

[18:29] lng, propane,

[18:31] and then I don't do any refresher training for two or three years.

[18:36] And then three years down the road after I had my initial training with it, I finally have the incident.

[18:42] Now I'm trying to remember.

[18:44] Oh man, what did he, what did Jim tell me three years ago on a Saturday morning during the class. So, so not only do you need to get the initial training,

[18:56] but refresher training on this at least annually is a good idea.

[19:01] Jim Leer: Yeah, I think the one thing that is go to as well as, you know, in Pennsylvania we have that six hour hazmat refresher class that majority that department should be doing.

[19:13] And you find a lot of departments just use it to check the box.

[19:16] Chief Ed Mann: Right.

[19:17] Jim Leer: So it might be, and to keep it fresh,

[19:20] it might be as part of your six hour refresher, making sure you're meeting the minimum requirements that you have one of these trucks come in as part of your annual Hazmat refresher or you go visit a fueling station but build it into your hazmat thing.

[19:35] And it's one of those things,

[19:37] it's a low based on compared to regular liquid fuels. Low frequency. We're going to see it. But when the incidents happen, there's a high potential for or severity concern associated with these vehicles.

[19:49] Chief Ed Mann: Yeah, low frequency, high risk.

[19:52] Jim Leer: Yes, sir.

[19:53] Chief Ed Mann: Low frequency, high risk. And they're the ones that get us in trouble.

[19:57] Yes,

[19:58] they're the ones that get us in trouble.

[20:01] So while we talked about the most prevalent types of alternate fuels for vehicles, and I'm hopeful our listeners are getting educated on lithium ion batteries. And I'm aware of biodiesel, ethanol, hydrogen, renewable diesel,

[20:15] and I'm sure there are others,

[20:17] my understanding is that some of the emerging alternative fuels are and I'm going to, I know I'm going to butcher this one.

[20:24] Biobutanol,

[20:27] dimethyl ether,

[20:28] methanol and renewable gasoline.

[20:32] So what advice do you have for the fire service in preparing and dealing for an emergency technology? I mean, I asked the question because it seems like all this new technology hits the streets when something goes wrong and the fire service is the first agency to respond that has to deal with it.

[20:50] What advice do you have?

[20:52] Jim Leer: Yeah,

[20:53] I think where it comes down to, and one of the things is where you may start getting a lot of this newer technology is if your state or your area has an annual HAZMAT conference.

[21:04] As you know, Pennsylvania has an annual HAZMAT conference. And that's where it seems like a lot of this stuff starts to get incorporated in. It seems like the HAZMAT type folks start to recognize this and eventually trickles down to the fire service.

[21:19] So just promoting, keeping up with training and education,

[21:23] learning what's going on is the best thing that I could say to keep up with this type of renewal fuels. And, and I agree with you too, there's. In our area, I don't see as much of this stuff, but you go other parts of the country,

[21:36] it's starting to become more prevalent with these alternative fuels.

[21:40] Chief Ed Mann: Yeah,

[21:41] yeah. And you know, the thing I think our listeners need to keep in mind is while you may not have a lot of it in your backyard,

[21:48] with the interstate highway system and the state highway system, it's. You could easily have one of these vehicles passing through your first due area pretty easily.

[21:59] I mean, I, I do a lot of driving and I see them everywhere. So, you know, I may not have a lot of them in my first new area typically,

[22:09] but they got to be passing through my area on a regular basis as well.

[22:14] Jim Leer: Yeah, I agree just the same as you. In my job too, I do a lot of driving on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, get up to Pittsburgh area, and you see a lot of this stuff.

[22:24] And I think that's also one. One of the hard thing is, is recognizing these vehicles. They're not always as prevalent unless you know what you're looking for.

[22:34] And that seems one of the things why I teach this class is where people need to understand it looks like your standard vehicle, but you got to look about those little design features and everything to be able to tell you if it's an alternative fuel type vehicle.

[22:47] Chief Ed Mann: And invariably it's got a little sticker on it. And a little sticker is what got rubbed off when the vehicle was involved in an accident. So now we missed the sticker.

[22:55] What else am I looking for? So the basic familiarization with this stuff I think is really, really important and I hope our listeners take heed to that message.

[23:06] Excuse me. So, Jim, as we near the end of the podcast,

[23:11] do you have any final thoughts or words of advice for our listeners.

[23:16] Jim Leer: Yeah, just to build into that and is making sure you do that. And we've seen these, all these in line of duty firefighter deaths or incident is lack of proper risk or hazard assessment that initial and continuous where we should be constantly assessing for these hazardous energy sources or alternative energy sources.

[23:40] And a lot of this goes back to some of you older fire service will recognize the name Ludwig Benner. Where one of the things that Ludwig when he was what we call the father of hazmat recognized with firefighters are attack and extinguish as approach to getting a better picture of what's going on.

[23:59] And that's one of the thing that that I've seen especially when you talk about CNG vehicles. Everyone thinks I have a CNG vehicles. The tanks are being exposed to fire and I need to throw water on that because that's what I was taught to do with cylinders.

[24:16] So we have to make sure we have an understanding about that. Then just to close this out is getting a systematic thing. A lot of this stuff is recognizing you're basically hazmat 101 the seven clues.

[24:30] One of the things I like to promote page four in the ERG book gives you some little cheap or simple steps that you can apply to HAZMAT incidents or these type of incidents.

[24:43] Get a systematic thing. So one of the things to promote in Hazmat to close this out is what's called risk based response. And that's where you look at the facts, science and circumstances and you break the incident down to where you get an understanding of what the container is,

[24:58] the type of material, what's its operating pressure, what's its safety devices, what's its limitations and capabilities,

[25:04] understanding the product, what's its primary secondary hazard, what's its chemical physical properties. And finally getting understanding of the environment, the environment impacts the chem, the container, the product, the responder understand what weather does if the incidents outside or outside topography and everything too.

[25:23] And that's what's called risk based response. And just to close this out as a thing that came out with it a couple months ago is through the National Volunteer Fire Counts was basically a free online program called Risk based response for HAZMAT responders.

[25:39] And that's the whole part of this program where you do a systematic analyzing an incident, developing a plan that a pie model. You analyze, you plan, you implement and evaluate the process.

[25:51] So that's pretty much my last my closing statements.

[25:55] All right.

[25:55] Chief Ed Mann: Well and, and, and I'm sure when we do your webinar in September,

[25:59] you'll be able to dive into some of that deeper for the folks that attend our webinar.

[26:04] Jim Leer: So yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that's then I I try to do this. It'll follow that container, that product, that environment,

[26:13] the systematic approach and and stressing a lot of our foundational things,

[26:18] clues, assessments and everything too be built into my program.

[26:23] Chief Ed Mann: Great. Jim, I can't thank you enough for joining us today and sharing your thoughts with our listeners.

[26:29] I'm forever hopeful our listeners will take some useful and be better prepared to deal with an incident involving these alternative fuels.

[26:38] Jim will be our guest during our live webinar on September 30 at 7pm Eastern Standard Time to present Gaseous Powered Vehicles.

[26:48] The program will cover the recognition fuel, chemical physical properties, fuel container design,

[26:56] hazards and incident response to gaseous powered vehicles. In other words, all the things we just talked about, compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas and propane. He'll take a much deeper dive to be able to help you to better understand how you can prepare.

[27:12] To sign up for the webinar and our previous recorded webinars, visit the link in our Episode Notes to this Podcast.

[27:21] Share this podcast with your colleagues. You can send them our subscription link, also found in the Show Notes.

[27:28] Lastly, to our listeners, if you have any questions or need additional information,

[27:33] or if you have an idea for a future webinar or podcast, please email us@infoprovidentins.com Station 1902 signing off. Until next time, stay safe for your family's sake.