Location: Ballroom 1
Time: 8:30am–12:30pm
Presenter: Tim Ferretti

Live fire demonstration, hands on familiarization and discussion on CNG vehicle response and tactics. The instructor will activate Thermal Pressure Relief devices to demonstrate their function, timing, and ability to be delayed by standard response tactics. A CNG flare will be used to allow students to become familiar with the physical characteristics and sound profile of CNG venting and flaring. A vehicle walk around and identification of components will also be conducted for familiarization followed by an open discussion of tactics.

Location: Ballroom 1
Time: 1–5pm
Presenter: Joey Pordash, Ben Herskowitz

G320: The purpose of this course is to provide the coursework to help qualify participants to serve as a Radiological Officer (RO). This course meets the Operations Level Competency for first responders and hazardous materials teams who may encounter or be called to manage radiological incidents. This course addresses Nuclear Power Plant, Transportation, Nuclear Weapons, WMD and Hazardous Material hazards. Participants will be able to support planning, emergency response, recovery activities, evaluation, NIMS/ICS applicability and exercising a radiological protection system (RPS) in preparation for a radiological incident. This course will include Pennsylvania specific information and requirements. It provides participants with an understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the Radiological Officer including administrative, equipment, team and advisory responsibilities. The course describes the framework within which the radiological response team functions, and provides fundamental knowledge of radiation and its affects, while building on the participant’s previous training and experience and including the proper response and pre-recovery procedures for a radiological incident.

RODEO: This event will focus on radiological emergency response and support activities. Topics will include blocks of instruction on instrumentation, Introduction to RadResponder, The Job of the Radiological Officer, A Hands on Station, Instrumentation Refresher, Radiological Sources, and Scene Response focusing on Monitoring/Decon stations. Course will commence rain or shine.

Location: Ballroom 2
Time: 1–5pm
Presenter: Bobby Salvesen
Organization: The HazMat Guys

This session takes a fresh look at the chemical and physical properties that form the basis of all our operations. Moving beyond the basics, we’ll explore why these properties matter and how they provide tactical advantages. We’ll examine these concepts from multiple perspectives to better understand how they influence our ability to control incidents.

Location: Ballroom 2
Time: 10:30am–12pm
Presenter: Bobby Salvesen
Organization: The HazMat Guys

Metering can be perplexing, but we excel at simplifying it. This 90-minute session will demystify metering technologies like electrochemical, catalytic bead, and photoionization detection. Attendees will leave with a comprehensive understanding of metering and its critical role in hazardous materials response. This presentation offers a concise overview of our full-day course.

Location: Ballroom 2
Time: 1:30–3pm
Presenter: Adam McFadden
Organization: Firehouse Training

When every second counts, hazmat responders must be prepared to respond to bomb threats and suspicious packages that may involve CBRNE agents, mass casualties, or secondary devices. This session explores critical strategies and field-proven tactics for fire-based hazardous materials teams operating in coordination with local firefighters, law enforcement, EMS, and bomb squads.
Attendees will learn how to identify potential explosive threats, assess scene hazards, utilize hazardous material detection equipment, implement safe isolation zones and on-site risk assessments, and support unified command structures. Real-world case studies, joint task force practices, and technical rescue integration will be discussed, focusing on firefighter safety, interagency operations, and public protection in high-threat environments.

Location: Ballroom 2
Time: 3:30–5pm
Presenter: Adam McFadden
Organization: Firehouse Training

Lithium-ion batteries power our lives — and increasingly, they are being misused as tools of criminal and terrorist violence. This dynamic, and interactive scenario-based course examines how commercial battery technology is being weaponized across domestic and international contexts: from targeted attacks on vehicle dealerships and political targets, to malicious tampering with shared micro-mobility devices, to the use of crushed battery cells concealed in soft containers and ignited in urban environments, like improvised incendiary devices and molotov cocktails.

Attendees will study a range of case histories: U.S. incidents such as attacks on Tesla dealerships and the politically motivated Tesla fire bomb outside Trump Hotel in Las Vegas; international events including battery-related threats at European transit hubs; and large maritime container fires in Asia where shipments of lithium-ion cells played a central role.

We will also analyze emerging domestic patterns — for example, criminals crushing lithium-ion cells and concealing them in pillowcases or soft bags to create highly transportable incendiary packages, and deliberate tampering of e-bikes and scooters placed in high-foot-traffic areas, to create secondary hazards. These scenarios highlight real, evolving threats that blur the lines between routine fire response, criminal investigation, and counter-terrorism.

Throughout the course we emphasize fire department hazardous material operational safety, hazard recognition, lithium-ion battery suppression tactics and response, evidence preservation and cell containment, and multi-agency coordination.

We will lead interactive scenarios and case discussions that force hazmat teams to think through initial size-up, containment and suppression tactics, thermal runaway and cell containment strategies; public safety perimeter considerations, and the handoff to criminal fire investigators and CBRNE teams.

Location: Classroom 202
Time: 1–5pm
Organization: PA State Fire Academy

This is the certification session for the Advanced Air Monitoring for First Responders

Location: Classroom 203/204
Time: 8:30–11:30am
Presenter: Jerry Knapp
Organization: Suburban Tactical, Inc.

The purpose of this program is to show attendees how to improve their response to explosive gas (natural gas and propane) emergencies.  Natural gas and propane emergencies are common alarms for all fire departments across our nation.  Our training and procedures are often weak so gas emergencies don’t get the respect they require until a response goes bad.  This presentation provides a practical fact filled, reality based, state of the art program that covers what fire officers and firefighters need to know to effectively and safely respond to natural gas and propane emergencies.

Location: Classroom 203/204
Time: 12:30–2pm
Presenter: Todd Leiss

Hazardous materials incidents on roadways combine everything that can go wrong: live traffic, limited visibility, compressed space, public exposure, media pressure, and the ever-present risk of secondary crashes and struck-by incidents.

This 90-minute session focuses on why roadway HazMat incidents are among the most dangerous scenes responders will ever operate on — and how those risks can be better managed through smarter command decisions, positioning, and integration with Traffic Incident Management (TIM) principles.

Participants will use RealScene XR, an immersive extended reality platform built from real incident scenes, to walk through highway HazMat scenarios in a guided discussion and tabletop-style format. This allows attendees to visually analyze apparatus placement, work zones, traffic flow, and command decisions without real-world risk.

By blending real-world case studies, responder injury and fatality data, and interactive XR-based discussion, the session emphasizes a critical mindset shift: on the roadway, the environment itself is often the primary hazard — not just the material involved.

Location: Classroom 203/204
Time: 2:15–3:45pm
Presenter: Kevin Herzog
Organization: McGard, LLC

This course is designed to prepare Hazardous Materials Teams to effectively integrate, coordinate, and operate alongside on-site industrial emergency response teams during hazardous materials incidents.

Industrial facilities often maintain trained response personnel with specialized knowledge of site processes, chemical inventories, fixed suppression systems, and facility hazards. Successful incident outcomes depend on seamless cooperation between municipal/public HazMat teams and these in-house responders. This course emphasizes the critical role of unified command, communication, pre-incident planning, and operational coordination to ensure safe and efficient mitigation.

Location: Classroom 203/204
Time: 4–5:30pm
Presenter: Jim Leer

This program will cover the application, capabilities, and limitations of safety devices used on fixed and transportation containers.   Emphasis is placed on excess flow valves, pressure relief devices, internal valves, emergency shutoffs, and additional container protection hardware.

This course provides Hazardous Materials Technicians with the knowledge and skills to identify, evaluate, and safely manage incidents involving safety devices on both fixed facility and transportation containers. Emphasis is placed on excess flow valves, pressure relief devices, internal valves, and additional container protection hardware found across bulk and non-bulk packaging in both settings.

Location: Classroom 205/206
Time: 9–10:30am
Presenter: Scott Burgess, Steve Curry

The presentation will discuss using a systematic approach to detect chemicals and make risk-based response decisions. How do you determine your actions? How do you determine PPE? Isolation distances? How bad is the situation? We will discuss the use of papers, multi-gas meters, FTIR, Raman, ion mobility spectroscopy, and high-pressure mass spectrometry. The audience will then be given various scenarios to process using the information that has been presented.

Location: Classroom 205/206
Time: 11am–12:30pm
Presenter: Chris Pfaff
Organization: HazMat & Rescue

In this presentation, Chris will go over mapping programs and basic GIS technology that can assist Hazmat responders in their response. With the new technologies out there, we need to flex this information to enhance our response. We will go over resources already available to responders, yet possibly unknown. We will go over the tenants of our known resources to include Tier II reports, commodity flow reports and others.

Location: Classroom 205/206
Time: 1:30–4:30pm
Presenter: Brian Ramsey

In this class we will examine the common causes and risks associated with static electricity and how current imbalances contribute to potential static discharges. Minimum Ignition Energy (MIE) and their relationships to common flammable liquids will be discussed and demonstrated during the class. There is a hands on portion where we will go outside and build an actual grounding field and let folks see actual values for easy ground fields and managing static electricity.

Location: Classroom 207/208
Time: 8:30–10am
Presenter: Ben Herskowitz

Hazardous Materials Gerrymandering takes a critical look at how hazardous materials, hazmat incidents, and response expectations are defined—and redefined—across the United States. The “beauty” of standards is that there are so many to choose from, and those choices are often shaped by training models, available resources, funding priorities, jurisdictional boundaries, and politics. The result is a patchwork approach to CBRN preparedness and public protection that can vary dramatically from one community to the next. This session is a curated, interactive discussion with no right or wrong answers, challenging participants to examine which standards exist, which ones are applied, how they’re interpreted, and when they truly matter during real-world incidents.

Location: Classroom 207/208
Time: 10:30am–12pm
Presenter: Greg Scott
Organization: Summit Hazmat & Emergency Consulting

Aircraft incidents are not just fire problems—they are complex HazMat incidents involving fuel, composites, batteries, oxygen systems, and hazardous cargo. This session bridges the gap between Airport Rescue Firefighting (ARFF) and municipal HazMat response, focusing on what career and rural firefighters must realistically do in the first 10–30 minutes before specialized resources arrive.

Designed for career, combination, and volunteer departments, this presentation delivers practical response recommendations, tactical priorities, and decision-making frameworks for aircraft incidents occurring on-airport, off-airport, or in rural jurisdictions.

Location: Classroom 207/208
Time: 1–2:30pm
Presenter: Chris Hawley
Organization: Emergency Management Solutions

Have you ever wondered what vapor pressure really means—or more importantly, how it actually affects your PPE or isolation decisions?

In your HazMat Technician class, you probably wrote down the definitions. Maybe even talked through them. But when you’re on scene, staring at a meter and a leaking product, nobody hands you a definition sheet and says, “Take your time.”

This session is all about closing that gap.

We take vapor pressure and other key properties and connect them directly to what you’re seeing on your meters and what you’re deciding in real time. Using basic detection readings and a simple, risk-based decision process, you’ll learn how to quickly size up fire, corrosive, toxic, and radioactive hazards without overthinking it or guessing.

This isn’t theory—it’s about making calls. The kind that drives your PPE, your isolation distances, your tactics, and ultimately answering the question every responder is asking: how bad is it?

After a quick walkthrough of the process, we’ll put it to work with hands-on scenarios that force you to interpret data, trust the science, and make smart, defensible decisions under pressure.

If you’ve ever looked at your meter and thought, “Okay… now what?”—this class is for you.

Location: Classroom 207/208
Time: 3:30–5pm
Presenter: Chris Hawley
Organization: Emergency Management Solutions

“It smells weird.”

That’s it. That’s the call.

No placard. No obvious spill. Just a building full of people looking at you like you’re supposed to magically know what’s going on.

HazMat teams deal with odor complaints all the time—and some of them make perfect sense. Others? Not so much. This session dives headfirst into the common odors, the unusual odors, and the ones that make you question whether you’re chasing a chemical problem or a ghost.

We’ll break down how to approach these calls without going down the rabbit hole, and more importantly, how to tell the difference between a true sick building and a legitimate chemical issue. One can usually be handled with a straightforward approach. The other can turn into a long, complex incident if you don’t recognize it early.

Using real-world examples, practical strategies, and case studies, you’ll learn how to sort through limited information, avoid the classic traps, and make smart, defensible decisions when the only clue you have is your nose—and maybe a confused gas meter.

Because sometimes it’s nothing… and sometimes it’s absolutely not.

If you’ve ever stood in a hallway thinking, “Why does it smell like garlic, cat pee, and regret?”—this session is for you.