LCFD#1 Awarded Grant to Purchase Hazardous Gas Detector Kit

Laramie County Fire District #1 recently received a $32,500 grant from Plains All American Pipeline to help with the purchase a wireless system to detect hazardous gases.

Assistant Chief Dillon Conner says the district bought an AreaRAE Pro Rapid Deployment Kit and a Rapid Deployment Host Kit, a roughly $59,000 system.

"The RDK contains four AreaRAE Pro Gas Detectors that can be deployed up to eight miles away from the RDK Host Kit," said Conner.  "The Host Kit is a computer which receives data from the detectors and can be used in a single, safe location to monitor the information."

"There are state resources similar to this, but there isn’t this type of capability in our local area," he added.

Conner says the new equipment, which replaces the handheld detectors previously used by the district, will also be available to other departments in the area.

"The district sees this technology as being useful in a multitude of situations, (including) tanker accidents on the highway, industrial chemical releases, or monitoring fires that could be releasing toxic chemicals," he said.

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