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Hazmat drills

Last updated September 5, 2026

Beta. Hazmat scenarios are new and still settling. What is here works, and the parts still being built are listed at the end. If something does not match how your department runs, tell us and we will fix it.

A hazmat scenario turns the drill around. At a structure fire the hazard is visible and the question is what to do about it. At a hazmat call the hazard is usually invisible, and identifying it is the drill: a crew that gets the product wrong does everything else wrong, confidently. So the scenario holds the truth about what the container carries, the scene holds what a crew can find out, and the review compares the two.

Choose Hazmat when creating the scenario.

The truth#

The setup panel in the builder holds what is actually on scene. Crews never see it.

  • The product. Search by UN number or name. The common products a department meets are written out in full: UN number, shipping name, hazard class, ERG guide, physical state, whether it is heavier than air, whether it is a toxic inhalation hazard, and what a crew would see, if anything. Every other material in the guidebook's index can be picked too, and then the class and state are a guess for you to confirm.
  • The container. The shape is the first clue a crew reads, so it is a first-class choice: cargo tanks by type, rail cars, intermodal tanks, totes, drums, cylinders, a pipeline, a fixed facility tank. Each says what it looks like from a distance and what it usually carries.
  • The release. Rate, small or large in the guidebook's sense, whether it is burning, whether it has reached water or a storm drain.
  • The shipping papers. Where they are and what they say. Write them from the product with one click, then edit: papers that disagree with the placard are a legitimate drill.
  • Weather. Wind direction is the most consequential number in the scenario. Author a shift as a situation level.

Guide numbers and the toxic inhalation flag come from the Emergency Response Guidebook, ERG2024. The guidebook on the apparatus is the authority; this is a training aid.

What the crew can find#

Identification is placed in the scene as elements, from the builder toolbar on a hazmat scenario. Each is drawn from its values, never painted into a photograph, so a placard always reads exactly what you set it to.

  • Placard. A DOT placard for any hazard class, with or without a UN number. It starts as the truth from the setup panel; change it to author a mislabeled load or leave it off to author a missing one.
  • UN panel. The orange panel with the four digits.
  • 704 diamond. The NFPA 704 marking on a fixed facility: health, flammability, instability and the special hazard.
  • Shipping papers. A place in the scene, on the view where a crew would find them.

Each placard, panel and diamond has a legibility for the view it sits on: clear, partial (color and symbol but not the digits), or unreadable (a colored diamond and nothing more). A placard is deliberately hard to read from a safe distance; that is the tactical problem. Put the same placard on a far view unreadable and on an approach view clear, and moving to the closer view is a decision the record captures.

The drill#

The scene works as it does for any other scenario: views, situation levels, injects, the radio, the command board, apparatus placement on the aerial. Two things are different.

The size-up. Crew members get a Size-up tab with the elements an operations-level first-arriving officer reports before anyone is committed: the container and its shape, the placard or number seen, the product if known, the amount and rate of release, what is burning, exposures and people at risk, wind, isolation established, the ERG guide, resources requested, and the level being worked at. Fill what you can see and transmit; transmitting again later updates the picture. Everyone hears about it in the feed.

The shipping papers. The Size-up tab also shows where the papers are. From any other view it says which view to go to. From that view, a crew member can read them, and what they said goes in the record with the time and the place. Getting there is an approach, and the drill lets a crew make it. Nothing is blocked; the review is the teeth.

The review#

The after-action review shows each size-up in full beside what was actually on scene when it was transmitted: the real UN number and product, its class and guide, the container, the release, and the wind. The scenario can be edited after the drill; the record cannot. Every element that was not transmitted is listed plainly.

It also shows every reading of the shipping papers: who, from which view, when, and what the papers said.

Still being built#

Isolation zones drawn on the overhead and checked against the guidebook's Table 1 distances, a population at risk to evacuate or shelter, monitoring with meter readings that answer from the release, and the exposure record. The operations level comes first; technician-level work (entry teams, decon, protective equipment levels) follows if departments ask for it.