What it is
The intervention card is prepared for the dangerous substances present at the establishment and carries the summary information to be used at the moment of an incident. It is an item of the Turkish regime and binds lower-tier establishments too.
Why a separate document
A safety data sheet has sixteen sections and its right place is a desk. During a fire, wearing a mask, in poor light, sixteen sections do not get read. That is why the card exists: the same information simplified for response.
What the card should hold
- the substance's name and identifiers,
- its main hazards — fire, explosion, toxicity, reactivity,
- suitable extinguishing media and media that must not be used,
- what to do in a leak or spill,
- protective equipment for the responder,
- first aid notes,
- where the substance is held and in what quantity.
For the card to be useful
It must be where the substance is and reachable by the response team; a card in a folder is a card ignored during a response. It must also be tied to the inventory: when a new substance arrives its card arrives, and when a substance leaves its card goes with it.
The most common defect
The card is prepared once and not renewed when the supplier changes or the formulation is updated. The result is a card that looks right but now describes a different substance — and at the moment of an incident that card names the wrong extinguishing medium.