Field technicians and emergency response personnel are often faced with the dangers of flammable, combustible, and chemically unstable materials. Although there are numerous procedures set forth by regulatory agencies like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) for effectively and safely dealing with such environmental hazards, up until now there has been no single resource for training in this area.

Based on the author's twenty-plus years of field experience,...