Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Amandalina Letterio

FIRE DRILL

Kamloops Fire Rescue runs drills at unique old building before demolition

Feb 15, 2022 | 4:18 PM

KAMLOOPS — On Tuesday (Feb. 15), Kamloops Fire Rescue (KFR) had the opportunity to run a training drill for firefighters at an old house on Nicola Street.

The property is owned by Kelson Group and is slated for demolition for the developer’s new project, ‘City Gardens’. Before tearing it down, Kelson Group offered it as a training site to KFR.

The building is full of smoke which offers zero visibility when firefighters are searching — which they often face in a real fire.

“One of the hardest parts and the most dangerous things of being a firefighter is going into unknown buildings. All the firefighters here haven’t been in this building, so we’re running a life-like scenario to get everyone through it,” Jeff Pont, KFR life safety educator says.

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The goal is to pick a side, do a left hand or a right hand search, and follow the contour of the building. The firefighters use thermal imaging cameras which allows them to see the other bodies of the firefighters or anyone else in the home.

“In this call that came in, it has two victims stuck in the house. As per the guidelines, there’s an eight-minute window of survivability. So we try and get into the house, find the victims, and get them outside as quickly as possible in that eight-minute window,” Pont explains.

Once the mock fire is out and the victims have been saved, the crew gathers to review how it went and discuss what could have been done better. According to the Platoon Captain Darryl Cooper, it was a success.

“I think it went off really well. We all got a little practice on our incident command, on our training, on our searching. Yeah, good takeaways from it,” Cooper says.

He adds that this drill is beneficial for the firefighters to keep their skills sharp.

“Crews have no set idea of what they’re going in for. Then going and doing their systematic approach and going through, and then doing a search. It’s a great opportunity for us,” Cooper says.

Pont reminds the public to be sure that your home is accessible to emergency responders.

“Guys have been in fires where there’s just junk piled everywhere and that makes it really challenging and dangerous for us. Smoke alarms, making sure those are working, so that alarms people to get out of the building,” he says.

If you are in a situation where you’re stuck in a structure fire and can’t get out, KFR says to stay low, get near a wall, and be loud.