[David Costa] immediately assembled the task force of high-ranking fire officials and firefighters to investigate the fires and research the impact of hydrogen cyanide in smoke. They found that cyanide is a much bigger problem for firefighters than most people in the fire service realized.

The task force recommends more scientific and medical research. They found that Rhode Island Hospital is the only major hospital in New England that performs cyanide testing in-house, and there are only eight laboratories in the country that perform whole blood cyanide tests. Hospitals that can't perform the tests in-house can wait up to a week to get test results, which is useless when determining whether a critically ill person has been poisoned by cyanide.

As the company develops the equipment, Providence firefighters will test it. Starting today, each fire company is getting a detection sensor, which is about the size of a deck of cards, to carry with it. The sensor has a screen on the front that can display the cyanide levels in the atmosphere, [Jeffrey A. Emond] said. The sensors can be carried on the firefighters' belts and vibrate to warn them of fatal levels or lower levels of cyanide, he said.