Hazardous First Responder

Course overview

The aim of this course is to provide first responders, or those with an incident command responsibility, with the necessary knowledge and practical experience to be able to competently deal with an incident involving hazardous materials. The course is built to give them the understanding and the confidence to either bring a hazmat incident to a successful conclusion or manage incident ground activities until the arrival of a tactical advisor or specialist officer. The learners will be prepared for whichever route they want to take.

In recognition of the latest developments in the world of hazardous response incident management and in line with national guidance, the National Chemical Emergency Centre have updated our HMFR course and continues to deliver it in partnership with the Fire Service College to give learners a truly world class learning experience at FSC facilities delivered by NCEC’s renowned hazardous materials and chemical experts.

This course is a one-week residential course at FSC’s unique site, one of the worlds' largest operational fire and rescue training facilities. At least two qualified trainers will lead the course – one an experienced hazardous materials advisor with at least 20 years on job experience and the other a sector competent chemist to provide further technical insight. 

The course uses different approaches to learning, informed by years of both theoretical understanding of the subjects and practical application of hazmat training delivery. In developing best practice training methods and an investment in learners’ capabilities we aim to best position delegates to be confident and competent when they respond after successful completion of the course.

Our instructors recognise that most learning takes place ‘on-the-job’ and therefore course delivery is predominately in a practical way with simulated exercises used to support learning at every opportunity.

Delegates are given the opportunity to practice their operational skills and provide tactical advice to incident commanders through participating in practical scenarios throughout the course which are delivered via computer simulation or in most cases practical based scenarios. Exercise simulations are taken from recent incidents, which either emergency responders at NCEC have provided advice for, UKFRS officers have dealt with or that we are aware of from our global contacts in the emergency response sector. This helps learners in getting the most up-to-date and relevant experiences from this course and ensures emergency scenarios will be realistic and appropriate to the environments in which Senior Officers will be exposed to once qualified.

During the course a combination of theory sessions, table-top scenarios, role play exercises and fire ground scenarios utilising the latest equipment, standard operation procedures and tactics are carried out. It includes training in emotional response and stress management, plume modelling as well as specific input on key resources Chemdata and Chemsafe.