Say someone (in this case, the protagonist of a story I’m writing) were to leave a leaking canister marked “biohazard” in a public restroom in a large office building, but the canister actually just contained some completely non-toxic substance. Upon seeing this, I’m assuming someone wouldn’t immediately test it to see if it’s real or not - they’d just get the hell away, and then call the authorities. Would the guys in rubber space suits be the first to respond?
Usually the first responders would be police officers, then FD (who may not necessarily enter the room with the canister, but would certainly eveacuate the immediate area prior to anyone tampering). Hazmat teams would generally be travelling further, and so get there later.
In addition, usually somebody on the fire department will assess the situation and determine weather or not HazMat shows up, and what protective gear they’ll need when they get there. Depending on the container type, they might not need their Class A (?) suits. I’ll respond to this in a bit more detail when I get back from lunch, one of the guys I work with used to be on a HazMat Response team.
Ok, I had a nice little chat over some BBQ brisket, so here goes.
If the hoax happens in a municipality, or other location that does not have its own HazMat team, somebody on the fire department would be in charge of incident assessment. This would involve determining what level of suits to wear*, setting up hot, warm, and cold zones**, and drafting an action plan. Turns out there’s quite a bit of paperwork that must go on between the time the accident is reported and when the HazMat response team gets to work.
You’re right in assuming that they wouldn’t test it right away to find exactly what it is. It’s class is important, though, in determining what type of response it will receive. To stray from the example in the OP for a moment, it is always assumed an unattended package is suspicious, and a suspicious package is always assumed to contain explosive. Regardless if the container is biological, chemical, or explosive, however, the HazMat team will have a container that can completely encapsulate it to eliminate that part of the threat. That would be necessary if the canister were under pressure, and was leaking a gas. It could then be taken to another location to be dealt with, while other members of the crew stayed for the clean up.
It’s entirely possible that the crew might not ever even know it was fake, although we didn’t go into great detail about what they do with everything afterwards. I can find out, if you’d like. If you have any other questions, I’ll see what I can do.
Level A = Fully enclosed, no permeation suits with SCBA (Self Contained Breathing Apparatus)
Level B = Level C suits plus SCBA
Level C = “Low Level” protective suits
Level D = What firefighters wear, often with SCBA
**Hot = Contamination
Cold = No chance of contamination
Warm = Staging area, where responders change out of their gear
OOOH one I can reply too!
<looks around for KCB or Danceswithcats typing>
First…standard firefighting joke…
How do you know if the truck was carrying toxic chemicals requiring heavy protective gear??
Let the cops get there first.
Ok <first responder Hazmat certified helmet on>
First off there are kits like so
and or quick hazard determination training and such
http://www.heinztraining.com/fieldmethod.htm
that many departments use to do a quick on the spot determination of at least some of the properties of what they are messing with.
Just knowing something has a ph of 2.1 or 10 you already know its something with unhappy properties when brought into contact with unprotected skin.
If you know you have a corrosive or toxic material you roll hazmat.
If you are in an urban area or dealing with a properly placarded truck/rail car the placarding will tell you the basic class of what you are dealing with like everyone has seen the “flammable 1301” signs on gas trucks.
There are dozens of those codes and they will give you a good idea where to start looking if you are not sure. So in many cases, if your tanker truck of perrier was placarded glacial acetic acid, they would figure it out PDQ
I was working as an analytic chemist for an environmental laboratory around 15 years ago. A person going out to take routine samples at a facility was caught speeding on the interstate. Thinking half quickly (rapidly, but not thoroughly), he told the state trooper that he was responding to a chemical spill. The trooper told him to follow and got into his car and flipped on his lights.
When they arrived at the mill there were fully suited hazmat teams, ambulances, and reporters from both the broadcast and print media. You can imagine how the facility felt having to explain to the press that “No, there wasn’t a spill here, and no, while that is what we might say if there was a spill it is also what we would say if there wasn’t a spill, and we don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He quickly joined the ranks of the unemployed and we equally quickly lost that contract. In short, though it’s too late for that, the hazmat guys will respond with great alacrity to a real, potential, or imagined spill.
Is today hazardous materials day or something? This is the second hazmat question I’ve responded to…
The first question really is would someone notify the fire department to respond and investigate the problem. I would suggest that no, they would not be called. The maintenance folks would come in, sweep or mop it up, and wonder in a week why they had a rash. Seriously. People don’t seem to react to something like this as you would think they would. But I digress…
If, however, the proper notifications were made to initiate a fire department response, the dispatcher would attempt to get as much information out of the caller as they could. What’s leaking? Are there any injuries or symptoms of exposure? Is it still leaking? How much? Do you know what it is? They would most likely send the closest engine and/or ladder company, or possibly more based on what they get out of the caller. Two ounce cup of something versus a 50 gallon drum of something is going to change the response.
Upon arrival, the company officer will try to get a hold of (preferably) the caller and find out what exactly is going on in this bathroom. Make sure the bathroom isn’t occupied, and check for injuries or contamination problems. Has anyone been in the bathroom since you called? Where are they? Are they having issues since they left? Do you know what the product is? Has the HVAC system been shut down? Is the product still leaking?
The officer then has to initiate command, isolate the area, deny entry to the area, protect vunerable populations, and start to identify the product. The poor company officer then gets to make a choice, do I send a crew in the bathroom to investigate, or do I cordon it off and wait for the technicians to arrive with some heavy artillery? If I send my crew in, it’s going to be in regular turnout gear with an air pack on. If they get product on them, it’s not so good. I can’t readily decontaminate turnout gear, and it might not protect me from whatever the product is. Also, I don’t have anything special other than the Mark I eyeball to figure out what the problem is. For the sake of your plot line, lets assume that the company officer isn’t into contagious diseases and is waiting for a hazardous materials team to arrive/assemble. This could be a dedicated hazardous materials company, it could be the heavy rescue, or it could be multiple companies each with one or two techs on them.
The hazardous materials technicans will don the appropriate protective clothing for the situation. It could be Level A, B, or C, it all depends on what the individual circumstances are. One of the problems with chemical protective clothing (CPC) is that I need to know what I’m protecting against to choose a suit. There are no “impervious to everything” suits, so I need to identify the prodcut before I can go near it. That means I need to identify it from a distance. See how complicated this can become? Once they make entry into the bathroom, they’re going to try to stop the leak. That’s it. Hazardous materials teams DO NOT clean up spills. It happened in your building, you get someone in here to clean that up. I’ll make sure it doesn’t kill anyone or go any farther than it already has, but that’s where my job stops. The emergency is over when the spill is contained. Remember what I said above, the facility maintenance staff is probably going to end up cleaning this up.
In reponse to Santo Rugger, the day I catch anyone staging anything in a warm zone at an incident, they’ll get to see the short, sarcastic, generally easy going fire company officer turn into Angry Guy, start throwing things, and inventing a wide variety of nasty new curse words. The only thing in a warm zone is a decontami - wait, sorry, “contamination reduction” corridor. Anything having to do with the incident, the command post, staging, backup teams, equipment, support staff, etc, is all in the cold zone. Outside the cold zone is the rest of the world. Inside the hot zone, as you said, is the incident and a buffer for as far as you think the incident is going to go (remember, a hazardous materials incident is dynamic, it’s always moving, and it’s your job to figure out where it’s going and what it’s going to do when it gets there).
As drachillix alluded to, we have a series of tests we call the Copological Indicators of Hazardous Materials:
Cruiser running, cop standing = Scene is safe
Cruiser running, cop dead = Toxic
Crusier not running, cop dead = Oxygen deficient
Cruiser melting, cop screaming = Corrosive
Cruiser on fire, cop on fire = Flammable
I’d say it’s a joke, but sadly, our cousins with the firearms and handcuffs tend to find themselves in incidents that they didn’t plan on, but they’re trained to respond to things a bit differently than firefighters are, so I can’t fully blame them (but I can make fun of them!).
Heh-Copological Indicators. Those are good. In addition to what the other HM folks have said, you might want to spiff up the story with some references to a HazCat kit, likely one of the first things I’d want to use for an unknown solid or liquid spill. If it’s a gaseous release, then a Draeger colorimetric gas detection set with polytest and a few others to help quickly classify the product would be my choice, along with something like an Aim multigas.
It’s a lovely day, for a level A, so connect the air line, and lemme go play! 
After a certain incident here it was the <name omitted> check. In reference to a certain very sexy news anchor getting into the hot zone unprotected then getting stripped and decontaminated amidst most voiciferous protest. As I heard it, whole new dialects of profanity were created by her that day. Unholy mothers and jackals that fucked them were the least of them.
The OP reminds me of a story told by a guy I used to know who worked for (IIRC) New England Nuclear, manufacturer of various medical radioisotopes and other assorted substances.
It appears that someone on the DC Beltway spotted a strange-looking heavy-duty plastic container and called the authorities. Cops were sent to investigate and found that the container announced that it held radioisotopes. The cops dropped it like a hot potato and called in the hazmat teams. The beltway was shut down. A couple of the cops said they felt sick and were hauled off to the hospital.
At some point it was decided that a good plan would be to call the company whose phone number appeared on the container. NE Nuclear checked the serial number and reported that this container had been shipped to a DC-area hospital about 5 months previously, containing a not-very-hazardous substance with a half-life of about a day. IOW, even if it was still in the container it wasn’t a problem.
With great care the container was opened. It was empty. Radiation levels were normal. The beltway was reopened and life went on as normal.
C’mon. You know the rules. Just like posts about new kittens, if you’re gonna talk about that stuff, give us a YouTube link. 
About 12 years ago, a friend had his car stolen. A few days later, the police called that his car had been found not far from his home. He went to the site. The car was undamaged, except for a pile of human feces on the front (bench) seat. The cop at the scene gave my friend the impression that he was expected to clean up the car and drive home.
My friend declined. A higher ranking cop arrived. A firetruck arrived. There was talk that the insurance company might wanna “total” the car. Eventually, the bench seat was removed, bagged, and hauled off. The car was towed to a repair shop, where a new seat was ordered and installed.
Pre youtube… this was 1989 IIRC.