Practice may not make an oil spill response perfect but it can help responders get a jump on preventing the worst.
“It’s designed to deal with an incident in the early hours,” Truro Fire Chief Timothy Collins said Wednesday during a training session at Pamet Harbor on ways to contain oil spills of 10 gallons or more.
The trainees — about 40 of them, all of whom typically respond to emergencies in Cape Cod’s three outermost towns — are now better prepared to use state-provided equipment to stop or slow spills as soon as they occur, officials said.
Truro is one of 70 coastal Massachusetts towns that was provided with a trailer full of containment boom, sorbents and other equipment, after the passage of the state’s 2004 Oil Spill Act.