Anniston Star
August 19, 2003

Official: Anniston Army Depot’s fire department able to reach a fire at the incinerator in time

By Sara Clemence
Star Staff Writer
08-19-2003

BYNUM

The fire department at the Anniston Army Depot can get to a fire at the chemical weapons incinerator within the required amount of time, one depot official said. New routes at the installation have streamlined firefighters’ ability to respond to calls.

Department of Defense regulations say the first fire truck must arrive at a fire within five minutes for 90 percent of all alarms.

Depot Fire Chief Dean Dixon had said it would take closer to 15 minutes to reach the incinerator from the nearest station.

Sue Turton, chief of safety at the depot, said the depot’s legal office has reviewed the regulations and determined that the department does not have to make the five-minute response time because it can reach 90 percent of the other buildings in that time.

"They recognize that you can’t have a fire station on every corner," she said.

Firefighters should be able to make the trip within 10 minutes, because a more direct, completely paved route from the station to the incinerator is now available, Turton said.

Before, the fire chief said, trucks had to drive outside the gates of the depot, around and back in.

Turton said the new route takes 11 minutes at 35 mph, and would be faster under "duress conditions."

"At the direction of the Command Group, we did a test run … to confirm time and route conditions," said depot Spokeswoman Joan Gustafson. "Since it was not a real emergency, we did not run at accelerated speeds to ensure the safety of all involved."

Firefighters can now drive from the southern end of the depot north through the ammunition area that takes up much of the facility to the chemical weapons storage area gate, then through to the incinerator gate. The gate between the chemical weapons area and the incinerator was not open until two weeks ago, Turton said.

Some fire department sources, who asked to remain anonymous, have said they’re not convinced the response times are sufficient.

The three test runs the department did last Tuesday were performed under optimum conditions, they said.

The truck started from the closest fire station, in the south-central part of the depot, in the headquarters area. The firefighters were already in the truck when they began, and the engine was running.

As would happen in an emergency, gate guards had been notified ahead of time that the truck was coming. The firefighters did not travel during Tuesday’s rain, or when the depot day was ending and pedestrians or traffic might be a problem, they said. The trip was timed to the incinerator gates, though not to the facility itself.

Depot officials have said that the incineration facility, where the Army is destroying obsolete chemical weapons filled with nerve and blister agent, is fire-resistant and equipped with automatic sprinklers.

There has not been a major fire at the depot in the last decade.