Several firefighters suited up in their hazardous materials gear Wednesday for a training exercise with the department’s new safety tool. Federal grant money paid for the $46,000 mass spectrometer, which can identify 30,000 different substances.

The device identified the hazmat training substance in just seconds: baby powder.

Fire Capt. Nick Gangwish says the device will let authorities more quickly determine whether a suspicious substance poses a danger and whether public access can be resumed at some incident scene.