Excerpts from FireRescue1.com:

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s (USDOT) Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) released the 2016 Emergency Response Guidebook (ERG2016), providing first responders firefighters and other emergency personnel with an updated  manual to help contend with hazardous materials transportation accidents during the critical first minutes.

PHMSA will distribute more than 1.5 million free copies of the guidebook to firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and law enforcement officers across the nation who will use it to identify specific risks associated with compromised hazardous materials, and the recommended safety measures and procedures they should take to protect themselves and contain the incident as quickly as possible.

The ERG contains an indexed list of dangerous goods and the associated four-digit United Nations identification numbers. The ERG also identifies the general hazards those dangerous goods pose and  recommends safety precautions in remediating a hazmat incident.

The 2016 version of the ERG includes general revisions, expanded sections and added guide pages for absorbed gases. Updated every four years as a collaborative effort of the USDOT, Transport Canada and Mexico’s Secretariat of Transport and Communications, the ERG2016 is available free to public safety agencies in all states, territories and Native American Tribes through designated state emergency management coordinators’ offices.

PHMSA has also partnered with the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to provide a free Smartphone version of the ERG2016.  NLM also develops and distributes the Wireless Information System for Emergency Responders. The mobile application will be available this spring.

A copy of the new ERG2016 is posted online.  Print copies of ERG2016 are available for sale to the general public through the U.S. Government Printing Office Bookstore and other commercial suppliers.

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