Problem

For more than twenty years, California has promoted alternative fuels, such as natural gas, in transportation to reduce petroleum use and help clean the air. In 1999, about 5,000 natural gas vehicles were on California roads. In 2002 and 2003, over 13,000 natural gas vehicles were registered in California. Natural gas vehicles now come in over 100 models, from light-duty passenger cars to taxis to transit buses. Emergency responders must know how to identify a natural gas fueled vehicle and how to safely respond to an incident.

Goals and Objectives

The California Energy Commission received a grant from the Office of Traffic Safety to develop a training curriculum for California's emergency response community. The program brought stakeholders representing the natural gas industry, the automobile manufacturers, and the natural gas utility companies. The program's primary objectives were to produce an interactive multi-media training manual, conduct four train-the-trainer classes to give emergency responders the knowledge to safely handle a natural gas vehicle incident, and make the materials available to the emergency response community.

Strategies and Activities

The California Energy Commission contracted with the Instructional Media Center Productions at California State University, Chico, to produce the CD and video. Dragonfly Communications Network provided the content and conducted the training classes. The stakeholders provided funding, and direction and review of the training program contents. The class curriculum was developed using an 8-hour format, but the material can be customized to accommodate one- or two-hour crew training, or used in conjunction with other curricula such as auto extrication. The video and CD also may be used as self-training tools at emergency response stations.

Major Goal and Objective Results

• Four train-the-trainer classes produced sixty-six trainers to hold their own training sessions.


• The California Energy Commission is making the training material available by responding to requests for the CD and video from emergency responders throughout California and across the nation.


• The California Energy Commission has publicized the program on the Internet and will be making the CD and video available on the Commission's web site.


• By making the material widely available, the California Energy Commission received a request to use a portion of the video to educate parents and school children on natural gas school buses.

Contact Information

To request a copy of the video and CD, please contact:

The CD-ROM can be downloaded from our website. It includes the Instructor's Guide, Student Manual and Program Notes in Acrobat PDF. A multimedia presentation is also available only for Microsoft Windows computers (download all files and double click in Intro.exe file).