IRTB

Last month I spent a week in New Mexico, learning about explosives. It's a class called Incident Response to Terrorist Bombings (IRTB) and it's put on by the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center of New Mexico Tech, and sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security. The Testing Center (EMRTC) is located in Socorro, New Mexico, a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. This is a good thing when you research involves blowing things up on a daily basis - not a lot of neighbors to complain. The week consisted of classroom and range time, learning to recognize bomb-making materials, how to respond to bomb threats, pre-detonation events, and post-detonation investigation and rescue. This wasn't a bomb tech class, so I still don't know which wire to cut, the blue one or the green one, but that's not my job. The class is all-expenses-paid (at least that's what they told us, I'm still waiting for my reimbursement check) and is valuable for any fire/rescue/police personnel. If nothing else, I have a new-found appreciation for how dangerous all this stuff really is. If you handed me a blasting cap a month ago I would have said "neat," but now I'd move to a safe distance, and ask you "what were you thinking?" through a megaphone. This course is also an instructor-level course, so once completed you can teach an awareness-level class to your own department/crew/organization. And if that isn't enough incentive to go, on the last full day you blow a car to smithereens.

For more information on the class, check out their website. For some pictures from my trip, look here.