After three years of research and development, the National Hazardous   Materials Fusion Center celebrated the national rollout of its full web portal on October 15, 2010 at the opening session of the HOTZONE Conference in Houston, Texas. This means that the broad hazmat community now has access to the entire portal, including the Members Only area and the Incident Reporting System. Leading speakers at the national rollout were Ms. Cynthia Douglass, Chief Safety Officer of the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, and Chief Jack Parow, President and Chairman of the Board of the International Association of Fire Chiefs. Your Hazmat Fusion Center team would like to thank the HOTZONE Planning Committee for providing the opportunity to conduct the national rollout during HOTZONE. While there are too many people to thank publicly for their help in getting your Hazmat Fusion Center to this point, Chief Bob Royall from Harris County, Texas and Chief Danny Snell from Houston, Texas, have played an instrumental role in the Hazmat Fusion Center project and are both heavily involved with the HOTZONE Conference. The Hazmat Fusion Center team thanks everyone involved!                                      

 Don't forget to register for Members Only access which allows qualified individuals an opportunity to participate in the full suite of Fusion Center products including complete RIST reports instead of executive summaries, discussion boards, the hazmat forum, and interaction with hazmat responders across North America. Please fill out an individual registration form if you are interested in access to the Members Only area.

Remember that the Hazmat Fusion Center has developed an Incident Reporting System that hazmat teams can use to enter their incidents, perform their own analysis and produce reports. Not only is the system a useful tool helping local jurisdictions to manage and analyze their own incident data, but the Incident Reporting System also helps the Hazmat Fusion Center create a picture of hazardous materials response nationally. Eventually, hazmat teams will be able to compare their incidents with what is happening in their state and region. By collecting this information, the Hazmat Fusion Center will be able to look for trends and produce valuable alerts to hazmat responders. Please help the Hazmat Fusion Center by registering to use the Incident Reporting System.