Columbia firefighters are still working to determine a dollar amount from damage an April vapor cloud caused to fire trucks and firefighting equipment on Brown Station road.
The April 28 incident happened at a manufacturing warehouse on Brown Station. Columbia Deputy fire chief John Ambra tells 939 the Eagle that the vapor cloud was caused by a malfunction at the warehouse:
“They had a malfunction in their facility which caused a reaction that appeared to be a fire. As so our crews responded to a commercial structure fire with Hazmat to that area. Unfortunately there was a vapor cloud again with this malfunction, chemical reaction I guess if you will of the product that they work on out there,” Mr. Ambra says.
Deputy chief Ambra says all of the firefighting equipment crews wore that day have to be replaced, and CFD is also checking damage to the fire trucks that were there. Columbia firefighters also say several people on-site that day experienced breathing difficulties due to the smoke, which contained hydrogen chloride vapor.
Columbia firefighters say they’re currently in talks with the company involved in April’s vapor cloud incident on Brown Station road to determine where funding will come from to replace firefighter equipment and damage to fire trucks that day:
“It’s an acid, hydrochloric acid that was formed and with the humidity in the air that’s where it obtained the vapor, the moisture. It did come in contact with some of our personnel in their full firefighting gear, and so we need to replace that PPE, that structural firefighting gear that they were wearing. And it also came in contact with some of our apparatus, some of our fire trucks,” Mr. Ambra says.
Deputy chief Ambra says the vapor release was not anticipated. 21 Columbia Fire Department personnel responded to the April incident, along with three University of Missouri Health Care EMS units.
