Ethanol has been moving more than just cars lately. With plants popping up across the Midwest, the countryside has enjoyed new jobs, a booming economy and higher farm prices. Consequently, small towns and cities have also had to take on a new responsibility, learning how to keep citizens safe around dozens of unfamiliar industrial facilities. "We're still in an early learning curve on this ourselves," says Randy Novak, bureau chief of the Iowa Fire Service Training Bureau. "This industry is new, even in this state."

Since the dramatic increase in the volume of ethanol produced in the United States began in 2000 there have been no catastrophic incidents in the industry, says Kristy Moore, technical director for the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA). "Unfortunately with an increase in volume comes a potential increase for incidents," she says.

Safety is an important issue for ethanol producers, their communities, insurers, shippers and firefighters. "We take this responsibility very seriously," Moore says. "We understand that as we are about to double our volume [of ethanol production] in the next 12 to 18 months."

Novak says a recent alert from the U.S. Department of Transportation on fighting vehicle fires made him aware of how much Iowa needed to do to prepare for a possible emergency at an ethanol plant. "The problem is we're not dealing with it yet," he says. "We are dealing with fire suppression in the vehicles. That's because we have an alert from the Department of Transportation on responding to those incidents. We're recommending [fire departments] carry foam that is alcohol resistant." When it comes to larger distilleries, they are telling the firefighters and the hazardous materials (HAZMAT) teams the same thing, he says. "When you look at specialty training, we've been doing hazardous materials training for a while," Novak says. "When we look at the ethanol or E85 product, we have to look at it a little differently because it's not going to burn with the same characteristics as normal unleaded gas with a 10 percent ethanol blend."

There are 17 HAZMAT teams in Iowa who respond to emergencies involving chemicals, such as train derailments or fires at chemical and fuel facilities. "So where these distilleries are, where the fire department isn't prepared or doesn't know what to do, they are going to treat it as a hazardous materials incident and contact their HAZMAT team," Novak says. "The HAZMAT team is likely going to be carrying larger quantities of alcohol-resistant foam."

The alcohol-resistant foam has been available for quite a while, Novak says, but most small fire departments would usually only keep limited amounts on hand for car and truck fires, not the massive quantities that may be needed to handle a blaze at an industrial-sized facility. "Here is the problem we perceive, if I see a car going down the street and it's a flex-fuel vehicle, what's in it? Today, the driver may have found a gas station that carries E85. Tomorrow, he can only find a station that carries 10 percent ethanol. We won't know what's in that fuel tank until we put the wrong foam on it."

For emergency workers, the situation is only going to get more complicated, Novak says. "We're also concerned about hydrogen vehicles. They're just around the corner; it's only a matter of time. We're not certain what the impact of other biofuels will be. Here, corn is the primary product for ethanol. But we don't know about the other biofuels. There's diesel and then biodiesel. We're just not up on it yet. So it isn't just ethanol."

Starting a Dialog
Novak is concerned that he doesn't know enough about the ethanol industry to ensure that firefighters in Iowa are properly trained to handle a major incident. "When it comes to large quantities of ethanol, we aren't seeing the incidents yet," he says. "While we are trying to get some information geared up for the fire service, we're not ready. We don't know the process of the distillery. We don't know when it becomes a hazardous material in the distillery process and when it doesn't. We're not sure how much (ethanol) is stored because we haven't had a chance to ask. This is a new field and I'm not certain we are geared up for it." Some of the things Novak would like to know include how much ethanol is typically in storage on-site, at what point in the distillation process does ethanol become a hazardous material, is it blended with other fuels on-site or after shipping and what are the plants' emergency preparedness plans.

Finding the answers to those questions is the goal of the Renewable Fuels Association's safety committee, Moore says. "We need to get emergency workers brought up to speed about the ethanol plant that's in their backyard," she says. "The goal of the safety committee is to promote awareness, good practices, and provide resources for plant operators, and have safety professionals at plant sites."

The ethanol industries interaction with emergency services has been mostly informal up to this point, Moore says. However, most ethanol producers work closely with their local and regional fire departments. In many small towns where ethanol plants are located it's not unusual to find many of the community's volunteer firefighters working at the plants. "There is some of that networking and exchange of information and training going on, but we would like to see a more formal and frequent process that when a plant is built there is a start of a great relationship between the ethanol plant and the first responders," she adds. "We're asking our member companies to take the information we are providing and start the relationship with town and regional fire departments."

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