Radiological Emergency Response Operations

Radiological Emergency Response Operations is a five-day course includes lectures, hands-on training, and team exercises. Students learn the concepts, equipment, and procedures related to radiological incident response, including a commercial nuclear power facility. During the course, the responders work in teams to perform radiological emergency response operations in a realistic exercise environment. The course culminates with an exercise that implements the Incident Command system in response to an incident that requires team coordination. The course adheres to Federal Emergency Management Agency Radiological Emergency Preparedness Program, the Environmental Protection Agency Manual or Protective Action Guides and Protective Actions for Nuclear Incidents and Federal regulations.

As this course is being taught, the Advanced Radiological Incidents (ARIO) course will also be in session with both courses coming together in an Integrated Capstone Event. The RERO course will focus on first responder hands-on equipment skills and responsibilities as members of a field monitoring team during radiological Plume and Ingestion Pathway incidents; whereas, the ARIO course will focus on Emergency Operations Center responsibilities, coordination of the field monitoring teams, data collection, and developing recommendations for protective actions.

Course Delivery

Resident (National Emergency Training Centers – Center for Domestic Preparedness -CDP)  

Any member of an organized federal, state, local, or tribal radiological/hazardous materials response element who has responsibility for responding to or managing a radiological incident. Personnel assigned to such teams include Fire Service, Law Enforcement, Health Physicists, Industrial Hygienists, Radiological Officers, and other emergency service personnel with similar responsibilities. Local or tribal participants should reside within either of two Emergency Planning Zones (EPZ). The two EPZs are described as 1) the plume exposure pathway EPZ has a radius of about 10 miles from the reactor site, or 2) the ingestion exposure pathway EPZ has a radius of about 50 miles from the reactor site.

A spreadsheet of jurisdictions, broken down by FEMA Region and state, eligible to attend Radiological training courses is available here.

To be eligible for the course, the student must successfully complete the following courses:

• IS-100.b, Introduction to the Incident Command System, 
• IS-200.b, ICS for Single Resources and Initial Action Incidents,
• IS-700.a, National Incident Management System (NIMS), An Introduction, 
• IS-800.b, National Response Framework (NRF), An Introduction 
• AWR-923-W Radiological Emergency Management
• Fundamental Course for Radiological Response or equivalent. (this has been retired without a replacement)
• Meet the requirements and standards of Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response (HAZWOPER), 29 C.F.R. § 1910.120(q)(6)(ii), (2009) and/or National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 472 Standard for Competence of Responders to Hazardous Materials/Weapons of Mass Destruction Incidents, Chapters 5 and 6.7.

The Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP) is an Accredited Provider (AP) of Continuing Education Units (CEU) and is authorized to award the following CEUs for successful completion of this activity:

• IACET (International Association of Continuing Education and Training) - 4.0 CEUs