Special Operations Division
Southern Manatee Fire Rescue District

Mission

Providing a hazardous materials response to the citizens of Manatee County by mitigating chemical, biological, and WMD incidents utilizing specialized skills, protecting life and property, the environment and infrastructure.

For emergency situations with suspected hazardous materials: Call 911
If you have a question or inquiry to hazardous materials, please contact:
Southern Manatee Fire Rescue District
1-941-751-7675 or email: mbloski@smfr.com

Protecting Critical Infrastructure

Manatee County contains a large amount of critical infrastructure that is protected by a special operations response from SMFR. Currently, our Special Operations apparatus is housed at SMFR Station 2 at 1922 30th Ave. East. We are a regional special operations provider to the neighboring counties. We provide special operations hazmat response to Manatee County and the cities of Palmetto, Parrish, Bradenton, Bradenton Beach, Anna Maria, Holmes Beach and Longboat Key. Each year the District has also received an increasing number of requests for specialized responses for hazardous materials incidents from county and regional fire districts, law enforcement, and community health care.

Deployable resources include:

Specialized response vehicles

Hazmat Squad 328
Hazmat Spill Response Trailer
Hazmat Mass Decontamination Trailer
Hazmat Operations Trailer
Two Special AR-AFF Foam Response Trailers

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

Structural Firefighting Gear
OSHA Chemical Protective Clothing

Field Deployable Operations

Hazmat Rehabilitation Trailer
72 Hours Regional Deployment

Specialized Hazmat Technical Equipment

Unknown (Solid, Liquid, Gas) Substance Identification
Radioactive Monitoring
Flammable Product Transfer Capability
Container Water Injection Capability
Leak Sealing and Containment Systems
Remote Communications Package

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Operations

Two UAV Drones Platforms
Aerial Leak Monitoring
Aerial Thermal Imaging Detection
Search and Rescue Capabilities

New Hazmat Squad 328

Expected in service late 2019

Operations

The SMFR Special Operations Team provides mission planning, operational safety, logistics, communications, hazardous materials incident planning, confined space operations, hazardous evidence collections, and fire operational support in support of the Manatee County Fire Chief’s support mission to local Emergency Management.

Deployable capabilities include:

Hazmat Response
Rapid Intervention Crew Response
Unmanned Aerial Monitoring
Confined Space Operations
Hazardous Evidence Collection
Tactical Support Functions to Civil Support Team & Federal Bureau of Investigation
CBRNE Response
Medical & Health Biological Support

Training

The training program develops and instructs training for personnel to safely operate within complex hazardous materials incidents for the purpose of protecting life safety, property, environment, and critical infrastructure.

The team in composed of 31 members that are Florida State Certified Firefighters, Florida State Certified Emergency Medical Technician or Paramedics, and Florida Hazardous Materials Technicians. Each member receives annual refresher training of 60 hours