First responder training contributes to safety

MKC employee, Murl Garver, shows first responders the
electrical panel in one of the grain elevators.

Thorough training about what to expect is a firefighter or first responder’s best friend when it comes to grain elevator fires, explosions or other accidents. Along with these types of trainings, a familiarity of the facility in which such events might occur is the responder’s next best friend.

Members of the Abilene and Grant Township fire departments recently spent an evening touring the facilities at MKC’s location in Abilene. The tour was organized by Matt McCune, the location manager at Talmage and a member of the Grant Township Fire Department. Matt said he volunteers, “because I feel it is important to give back.”

Firefighters toured every building on the premise including the chemical storage and workshop, seed cleaning and fertilizer sheds. Firefighters were also shown where electrical panels are located and how to cut the power to the building.

Bob Hickman, safety director for MKC, explained why it is important for first responders to have knowledge of the facilities, “They need to be able to understand the hazards, chemicals, fire danger and special situations presented by grain and agronomy operations. We allow them to look at our chemicals, ammonia, material storage, bins, and silos; and then explain how we respond to emergencies.”

Larry Brake, location manager at Abilene stressed the importance to the touring group that they understand the hazards of chemicals used at the coop. “We talked about our fumigation procedures and the dangers of spraying water on aluminum phosphide as it is highly flammable to water.”

It was also explained to the group why the chemical building is placarded for no water due to possible chemical runoff.

“I think it is important for fire departments to know what the dangers are before a fire. If the fire department showed up in the middle of the night, we would not want them dumping thousands of gallons of water on a chemical fire and pushing crop protection products and nutrients to the river.  This would be devastating,” said McCune.

The tour group also covered the extraction of a worker who has been engulfed in grain. Brake noted that they are looking into setting up a training session for the fire fighters and first responders. Many MKC employees have gone through extraction training themselves; one such training was held at Talmage early in May.

“We offer tours and training at our facilities to local first responders to familiarize them with our operations,” said Hickman. “It’s these types of details that could save lives.”