AREA FIREFIGHTERS' METH KNOWLEDGE VALUABLE

The selection of Southeast Missouri firefighting agencies to provide information for instructional programs that will guide firefighters around the nation in handling fires and waste at illegal methamphetamine labs illustrates how much confidence those responsible for the project have in the firefighters' abilities to handle these nasty and often dangerous situations.

But their selection also is testimony to the fact that many Southeast Missouri firefighting agencies have gained firsthand experience in dealing with meth lab fires and waste disposal because far too many of these illicit labs turn up across the region. Often they are discovered when some deadly combination of chemicals used in meth production sets off an explosion or erupts into flames.

Three books and courses at intermediate and advanced levels are being prepared to deal with how to handle meth lab fires and chemicals when firefighters first arrive on the scene of a meth lab. John Sachen, training officer for the Delta, Mo., Fire Protection District, and Capt. Drew Juden of the Sikeston, Mo., Department of Public Safety recently presented part of a course covered in the books to top emergency-response trainers from 35 states at a seminar in St. Louis.

The project was put in Sachen's hands about a year and a half ago by the Fire Rescue Training Institute in Columbia, Mo., which received a federal grant to develop courses for first responders to locations where a meth lab was the source of a complaint.

So many things can happen because of the chemicals that go into the making of meth.

The instruction deals with those chemicals, what to look for at a meth lab site and what to do and not to do. Waste disposal is stressed because leaving wastes behind at a meth lab poses a danger to the public for years to come. That waste can be toxic or corrosive.

Because of the odor put out by the manufacture of meth, most labs are in rural areas away from heavy populations. This is one reason so many labs have been discovered in Southeast Missouri.

Because the region seems to attract so many meth makers, many firefighters have had to learn from trial and error how to deal with meth labs and the disposal of wastes.

Now, firefighters elsewhere can feel more confident in their dealings as meth manufacturers set up shops in other parts of the country.