Following decades of false starts, a large county-wide hazmat team is finally up and running. Careful and deliberate planning from the start and a focus on training and interagency relationships

Hawkins County Emergency Response Team was organized in May 1995 by Bob Laeng, who served as chief. He had a favorite saying that has become the team motto: “Don’t get none on ya!”

In east-central Argentina a volunteer fire company formed in 1965 protects more than 380 square miles and more than 180,000 residents. Read More at Hazmat Nation

For more than 50 years, Industrial Rescue Instruction Systems has been training fire academy, university and private sector students in hazmat and technical rescue. Read More at HazmatNation.com

This municipal combination fire department established its hazmat team to cover the city, some 69 square miles with about 61,000 people.

Located in Central Florida, about 85 miles northeast of Tampa, the Sumter County Fire & EMS Special Operations team has 30 dedicated members, many cross-trained for technical and water rescue.

Fittingly, this Los Angeles County-based hazmat team is something you’d expect to see in an action movie. Highly trained and heavily equipped, this five-member team is the first call you make if there is a major CBRN event anywhere in the county.

While most Hazmatters profiles focus on teams affiliated with a government entity, this private hazmat operation warrants a closer look.

The team, on average trains three times per month and as often as possible with outside agencies. And that’s important as Bucks County is the fourth most populous county in the state and lies immediately north of Philadelphia in the Delaware Valley.