All 13 Burk’s Falls and District firefighters taking the survival course had to squeeze, in full gear, through this 21-inch square hole.
BURK’S FALLS — This week two communities in Quebec are in mourning after brave young men lost their lives trying to help others.
In each rural town a young man tragically lost his life after volunteering to put themselves in harm’s way for the protection of others.
They were firefighters and their deaths have touched lives across the country and beyond, and here in Almaguin.
The death of a firefighter in the line of duty is never a simple affair. What, how and why the deaths happened will be examined thoroughly by everyone up the chain of command. This is done not just for understanding, but to prevent a tragedy like it from ever happening again.
Lessons learned from tragedies like those in Quebec were recently passed on to members of the Burk’s Falls and District Fire Department’s (BFDFD) volunteers during two days of survival training that could some day prevent such a tragedy.
Thirteen members of the BFDFD squad took the intensive training that focused solely on firefighters getting themselves and each other out of dangerous situations.
“Most training for the fire department is how we save somebody else,” said the department’s training officer Pat Hayes. “This training is how we save ourselves.”
Only recently becoming a certified course with the Ontario Fire Marshall’s (OFM) office, the course is for Rapid Intervention Teams (RIT) that are required to standby at fire scenes. RITs are ready at a moment’s notice to get a comrade out of danger.
“The only people the RIT will go in to save are other firefighters,” said Hayes.
During the extensive course that consists of eight hours of theory and 16 hours of practical training, firefighters are put through a host of potentially lethal scenarios.
Put on by the Ramara Township Fire Department, Hayes, a full-time firefighter in Mississauga, says the training was amongst the most intense he has ever taken.
“With the certification, the volunteers from Burk’s Falls could go down to Mississauga and act as an RIT for us,” said Hayes.
Skills picked up in the course included: how to get out of a tangle of wires should a drop ceiling fall on a firefighter in the home; using a fire hose as a pole to slide out of a second or third storey window; how to get onto a ladder fast from a second storey window; how to lift to safety a firefighter who has fallen through the floor by using a kinked fire hose; and how to breach and then escape through a standard 16-inch stud wall and other tight squeezes.
Almost all of the scenarios were done in full bunker gear, including breathing apparatus and tank. Many were completed with blacked-out masks to simulate the darkness of a smoke-filled building.
Hayes says many of his fellow firefighters were skeptical when they first saw the scenarios, but by the end of the weekend course were handily completing the tasks.
“There’s a firefighter who weighs more than 300 pounds and in full gear, breathing apparatus and tank and everything, he went through a 21-inch by 21-inch hole. They showed us it can be done and it could save our lives,” said Hayes.
Editorial
