Our Training Classes
Air Monitoring & More
Training Courses for First Responders
Explore below to see which option best fits your organizations training needs! Spend your training dollars on making a difference to the
Safety, Health and operational competency of your personnel!
The Meter Guys Courses
The Meter Guys: Full Day "When Meters Matter"
Our most popular course, this hands-on training delivers practical, real-world skills for first responders of all experience levels.
We provide all meters and equipment—your team just needs a classroom. Taught nationwide, this course is making a measurable impact on first responder safety and health.
The Meter Guys Express:
Half Day Meter Training
This is a half-day class that is a condensed version of our full day Meter Guys class.
This class allows jurisdictions the flexibility of offering the same class twice a day morning and afternoon, or evening sessions.
90 Second Size Up
Half Day
This class enhances a responder's ability to identify hazards and make critical decisions rapidly and effectively upon arrival at an incident.
Through our street smart chemistry and hazards assessment and the use of meters available to the responders we are teaching.
Jurisdictions have different meters available we tailor this class to your resources
More Training Courses
The Meter Guys: SOS (Saving Our Selves)
4-Hours
The health and safety of your personnel come first. This course goes beyond basic CO and HCN, teaching responders to understand the full range of toxic gases present in smoke and their long-term health risks, including cancer.
Through education and hands-on learning, this essential course helps drive real change in responder safety culture. This is a true safety course—not a check-the-box program.
Meter Boot Camp for Recruits
NFPA 1010 Compliant!
Meter Boot Camp gives recruits and responders a strong foundation in metering skills they’ll use throughout their careers. Through assessment, chemical and physical properties, and hands-on meter training, this course promotes a culture of safety, health, and operational competency from day one—for both new and seasoned responders.
We've been teaching this class for years, it's nice that NFPA 1010 has finally seen what The Meter Guys have been campaigning about for years!
The Meter Guys
&
Emergency Management Solutions
Course Offerings
Challenging Foursomes
4 Hour Course
From the farm field to the refinery, from rail cars to neighborhood tanks, liquefied gases are everywhere—and when they fail, the consequences can be catastrophic. This session provides an in-depth exploration of the similarities and differences among Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), Chlorine, and Anhydrous Ammonia, focusing on their chemical and physical properties, transportation, storage, and use.
The HazMat Officer's Three-Ring Circus: Managing Chaos with Confidence
8 Hours
This dynamic and interactive session is designed for Hazardous Materials Officers and for those who aspire to lead at hazardous materials incidents. If you’ve ever found yourself trying to coordinate the “three-ring circus” that unfolds at a HazMat scene, this session is for you. Participants will explore the principles of incident management and risk-based response through engaging, hands-on activities and interactive technology that simulate real-world hazardous materials incidents. Using these tools, attendees will be guided through a variety of evolving situations that require quick thinking, sound judgment, and coordination across multiple response functions. Throughout the session, we’ll connect lessons directly to NFPA 470, Chapter 17 Job Performance Requirements (JPRs) for the Hazardous Materials Officer position.
Liquid Natural Gas LNG
8-Hours
Essential Training for Firefighters • Hazardous Materials Teams • Law Enforcement • Emergency Management • Industry • Coast Guard • Port Operators
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is expanding rapidly across the energy, transportation, and maritime sectors. With increased production, storage, and movement comes a growing need for responders and operators who understand LNG’s unique hazards and how to manage them safely and effectively.
This streamlined, high‑impact course delivers the fundamentals every responder and industrial professional needs to recognize LNG risks, make informed decisions, and operate confidently during LNG‑related emergencies.
Participants leave with a clear understanding of LNG hazards, stronger decision‑making skills, and practical tools for managing transportation and facility‑based LNG emergencies.
What the Course Covers:
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LNG 101: History, global use, and role its role in electric power generation and as a heating and transportation fuel
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Properties & Behavior: Cryogenic hazards, vapor clouds, flammability, ignition, and dispersion
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Transportation: LNG movement by marine vessels, isotainers, MC‑338 cargo tanks, and the status of LNG by rail
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Facility Operations: Storage tanks, liquefaction systems, regasification, and bunkering operations
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Emergency Response: Scene size‑up, air monitoring, hazard prediction, protective actions, and fire control strategies for LNG incidents
Who Should Attend:
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Firefighters and hazmat teams
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Law enforcement and public safety
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Emergency management and homeland security
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Industrial safety and operations personnel
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Coast Guard, port authority, and maritime operators
Mercury: The Small Spill That Becomes a Big Problem 3-Hours
Mercury might seem like a relic of old thermometers and switches, but it remains one of the EPA’s highest-priority hazardous materials—and one of the most deceptively dangerous. A spill that looks minor can quickly become a costly, complex, and contamination-heavy nightmare. This session takes a practical, science-based look at how mercury behaves, how it spreads, and why even a few drops can create long-term exposure risks. Participants will review health hazards, vapor generation, and surface contamination issues while learning how to assess risk and establish safe operating zones. From personal protective equipment selection to detection and monitoring tools, this class walks responders through proven field techniques for identifying, containing, and cleaning up mercury releases. Step-by-step strategies for isolation, ventilation, evacuation, decontamination, and recovery are discussed using real-world case examples from schools, laboratories, and industrial settings.
Risk Based Response 4-Hours
Have you ever wondered what vapor pressure really means—or how it actually affects your PPE or isolation decisions? In your HazMat Technician class, you may have written down the definitions, but were you ever shown how to apply those terms during a real incident? This session bridges the gap between terminology and tactics. Using basic detection readings and a simple, risk-based decision process, responders will learn how to make quick, confident judgments about fire, corrosive, toxic, and radioactive hazards. By understanding key chemical and physical properties—and how they directly influence protective equipment, isolation distances, and response actions—you can rapidly determine “how bad is it?” After a short review of the process, we’ll apply the lessons through hands-on scenarios that challenge your ability to interpret data and make smart, defensible on-scene decisions.
Hazmat Response to Smells 3-Hours
HazMat teams respond to reports of odors all the time, and many of these calls can be challenging. This session focuses on how to determine the cause of the common odors, the unusual odors and the weird odors. There are true sick buildings and there are buildings with a chemical problem, one can be easily solved by a response team, the other requires more substantial work. This session will cover examples of both and provide strategies and case studies to handle these types of situations.
Colormetric Tubes Sampling 3-Hours
Confused by colorimetric tubes? You’re not alone. Many responders have used them, few truly understand them, and even fewer trust what they’re telling them. Do they work? Are they accurate? Can you really depend on them to solve your problem? This session takes a deep dive into the science, application, and limitations of colorimetric detection tubes. We’ll look at how they function, what makes the color change happen, and how environmental conditions and cross-sensitivities can influence results. Attendees will learn to recognize when tubes are the right tool—and when they’re not. Topics include proper use, storage, and checks; tube selection for different chemical families; interpreting results under field conditions; and understanding what that color change really means in terms of concentration and hazard. Real-world scenarios and comparative demonstrations will help participants translate tube readings into actionable on-scene decisions. By the end of this class, you’ll know how to separate myth from science and walk away as a Colorimetric Guru—someone who can use this time-tested technology with confidence, precision, and purpose
You trust your meter — but do you understand it? Electrochemical and oxygen sensors are the workhorses of nearly every multi-gas detector in the field, yet few responders can explain how they actually function or what their readings truly represent. This session takes you beneath the faceplate to explore the inner workings of these sensors. You’ll learn how gases interact with electrodes and electrolytes, why temperature and humidity matter, and how sensor drift, poisoning, and interference can change what you see on the screen. We’ll break down the science in plain responder language, connecting the chemistry to real-world performance. Attendees will also learn practical field tips for testing, calibration, and verifying sensor function—plus how to interpret unusual readings, sluggish response, or zero drift. Oxygen sensors, often the “canary in the coal mine,” will get special focus, including why they fail, how they age, and what false readings really mean during confined space or HazMat operations. By the end of this session, you’ll have a working knowledge of what’s happening inside the cell—and the confidence to make smarter, safer decisions based on your instrument’s readings.
Electrochemical & Oxygen Sensors: What's Really Happening Inside the Cell 3-Hours
WMD Detection 4-hours
When the threat gets bigger, so does the technology. Responders tasked with detecting Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) hazards often face an alphabet soup of detection tools—IMS, FTIR, Raman, Flame Spectroscopy, and even simple color-change papers. But do you really know what each one sees, how it sees it, and what its limitations are? This session breaks down the science behind the most common WMD detection technologies used in the field today. Participants will explore Ion Mobility Spectroscopy (IMS) for chemical warfare agents and explosives, and Flame Ionization Spectroscopy for chemical vapors, FTIR and Raman for solid and liquid identification, and the tried-and-true chemical detection papers still carried in many kits. Through demonstrations and case-based discussions, attendees will learn how each technology detects materials, how environmental conditions and sample prep can affect accuracy, and how to interpret both positive and false readings. The session will also highlight how to layer technologies for verification and confirmation, building a strong detection strategy for complex incidents. By the end of the class, you’ll understand what’s really happening inside each detector — and how to use them together to turn data into decisions during a WMD or CBRN event.
Advanced Detection: Understanding the Science Behind the Numbers 16-Hours
Detection drives decisions—but how well do you truly understand the instruments that guide your choices? This advanced session explores the science, standards, and strategies behind today’s chemical detection technologies. It’s designed for responders who want to move beyond button-pushing and into real comprehension of how their meters think, react, and sometimes deceive. We’ll begin with an overview of regulations, standards, and reference materials that define performance expectations and limitations for detection equipment. From there, the class dives deep into chemical and physical properties that influence readings—linking theory directly to field application. Attendees will explore the inner workings of oxygen sensors, toxic gas sensors, and LEL detectors, learning how they function, fail, and interact. Advanced detection methods such as photoionization and colorimetric techniques (including pH, potassium iodide, fluoride, and colorimetric tubes) will be examined for both capability and constraint. By connecting sensor technology to the chemistry of what’s being measured, participants will develop a true understanding of detection data—how to validate it, challenge it, and use it to make better response decisions. The session concludes with a wrap-up that ties all sensor types together into an integrated, risk-based detection strategy. When you leave, you won’t just know what your meter is reading—you’ll know why.
Advanced Detection Course Overview
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Introduction and overview
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Regulation and Standards
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Reference materials
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Chemical and Physical properties
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Oxygen sensors
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Toxic Sensors
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LEL Sensors
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Photoionization
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Colorimetric
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pH
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Ki
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F
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Colorimetric tubes
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Wrap-up