The four parts of the book you will use
The yellow section lists materials by their four digit ID number: 2,771 rows in the 2024 edition, on printed pages 29 to 86. The blue section lists the same materials by name. Both give a three digit guide number, and 522 of the yellow rows are highlighted in green. The orange section holds the 62 guides themselves, each two pages: hazards, public safety and evacuation on the left, fire, spill and first aid on the right. The green section holds Table 1, the initial isolation and protective action distances for the highlighted entries.
The lookup, in one example
A cylinder is leaking at night, and the orange panel reads 1017. Page 29 of the yellow section gives Chlorine, Guide 124, and the row is green. Table 1, small spill: isolate 60 m in all directions, then protect 1.5 km downwind at night. Then Guide 124 gives the first actions. Every guide below takes one part of that path and slows it down.
Every guide
- How to use the guidebook: the lookup path from an ID number, a name or a placard to the orange guide and Table 1, step by step.
- Placard classes explained: the nine hazard classes and their divisions, with our own drawing of every placard and its placard table guide.
- UN numbers and guide numbers: what the four digit ID number means, how the yellow and blue sections map it to a guide, and the P suffix.
- Isolation and protective action distances: reading Table 1: small and large spills, day and night, Refer to Table 3, and the guide distance for materials not highlighted.
- Reading shipping papers: the parts of a hazardous materials shipping description and how each one leads into the guidebook.
- Hazmat awareness class drills: a four lesson plan for awareness level instructors using projection, class sets and the timed lookup run.
How the drill fits in
Reading about the lookup is not the same as doing it fast. The daily drill gives five scenarios a day and grades the class, the guide, the distance and the first actions separately, so you can see which step you keep missing. The UN number lookup searches the whole yellow index when you only want to check a number. Instructors can put any scenario on a screen with projection mode.
Everything in these guides is paraphrased from the 2024 Emergency Response Guidebook and checked against it. It is written for training. In a real incident the current printed guidebook and your employer's plan come first.
Sources
Checked on 27 September 2026. Everything here is said in our own words; the guidebook's text is paraphrased, never quoted at length. Where your instructor, your employer's plan or the current printed guidebook says something different, follow them.
- 2024 Emergency Response Guidebook, How to Use This Guidebook (printed page 1) and User's Guide (pages 344 to 349). The lookup order: ID number to the yellow section, name to the blue section, placard to the placard table, then the orange guide and, for highlighted entries, Table 1; opened 27 September 2026.
- 2024 Emergency Response Guidebook, yellow section (printed pages 28 to 87). The ID number index and its introduction, including the green highlighting and the P suffix; opened 27 September 2026.
- 2024 Emergency Response Guidebook, Introduction to Green Tables and Table 1 (printed pages 280 to 333). Small and large spills, day and night, and Refer to Table 3; opened 27 September 2026.
- Placardset's grader. Every example on this page is computed by the drill's own data and grading at build time, and pinned by a test.