In this day and age the Guam Fire Department not only puts out fires and responds to emergency medical calls. Our changing times require firefighters to train for a wide variety of services. Hazardous materials incidents involving the release of dangerous chemicals, radiation or biological and environmental emergencies and confined space incidents that could cause the loss of life, destruction of property, or harm to the environment must be dealt with.   

 Located at the Agat Fire Station is where you will find the Hazardous Materials Response Team. In addition to their regular duties as a firefighter and EMT, the HazMat team has been extensively trained and equipped to respond to the threat and/or deployment of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction as well as fixed facility and transportation incidents involving the release or potential release of hazardous materials.

GFD Captain Edward Flores is the Officer-In-Charge for station 5, Platoon B and the HazMat Team, ad told KUAM News, "So basically we support the initial response units when they find that there is an extreme hazard or something that requires a extrication from a confined space or it's an extreme hazard that we may be able to support them in."

The HazMat capability fills a gap that existed in emergency response on island and is operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with a crew of 9 alternating days.

"There are a lot of hazardous materials, a lot of hazardous environments on Guam that needed to be addressed as far as being able to respond to them. We're placing a lot of firefighters in situations that they may have not been equipped for in the past- but we've received a lot of equipment and a lot of training to handle those environments better," noted Flores.

The HazMat team is outfitted with a utility truck and trailer to store and transport the equipment and protective clothing, suits, gear tools and equipment necessary to mitigate hazardous materials emergencies. And when they aren't responding to standard fire and medical emergencies, they are training for hazardous materials emergencies.

Fire Lieutenant Aaron Cruz said, "We do these simulations once a month but here at the station, we are constantly training- so there's so much to learn with the suppression aspect, our EMS, our confined space rescue, and HazMat that we are constantly switching out one week we do hazmat, the next week we do EMS, and then the next week is suppression...but it's like a constant thing, we are always training."

According to Lt. Cruz, one of the most prevalent hazmat issues on Guam is chlorine, explaining, "We need it for water treatment and all that, that's why we are always ready to go and always training and being prepared for chlorine leaks."

Since its establishment, the HazMat Team has continually progressed and increased its capability to deal with special emergencies.