An inquest looking into the deaths of two Ontario firefighters during training for ice rescues has heard rescue operations in icy, swift water are rarely successful. Private safety training courses in the province are unregulated and the Ontario Fire College does not offer ice rescue training.
The Slave Lake wildfire, which destroyed roughly one-third of the Town of Slave Lake, Alberta, burned through the town from May 14 to May 16, 2011. The town hall, library and radio station were completely gutted and 732 residents were left homeless. Insurable damage was estimated at $750 million, making it the second costliest insured disaster in the country at the time.
The Tokyo Fire Department recently unveiled its new testing room where extreme climate conditions can be artificially created. The testing room will be used to conduct research on countering heatstroke in preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and to develop firefighting equipment.
A proposed fire prevention bylaw in Winnipeg would include mandatory fire safety inspection standards for food-trucks and illegal rooming houses, prohibit the use of sky lanterns and allow fees to be charged for new fire safety inspections. It would also allow fire safety inspectors to install smoke alarms in facilities where none exist and replace faulty alarms where landlords cannot be reached or will not install the units themselves.
Saint John’s industrial area is home to Canada’s largest oil refinery, a LNG terminal, natural gas pipelines and rail lines that carry a variety of industrial cargo. Fire Chief Kevin Clifford wants to use a new approach to emergency response plans that would have the fire department taking on a larger role.
A University of Alberta study that surveyed 355 firefighters involved in battling the Fort McMurray fire found one in five suffering respiratory problems and one in six experiencing mental health issues. Researchers hope to find out which factors caused long term health problems and how those factors can be mitigated in future fires.
Staff at Oakland’s Fire Prevention Bureau, whose job it is to annually inspect all commercial buildings and some residential properties in the city, are using an older database that is not user-friendly. Problems with the system may have contributed to lapses in inspections of dangerous buildings.
A bill, the Rea and Walter Act, which would make it mandatory for all lightweight constructed buildings to be identified as such has passed second reading in the Ontario Legislature. The bill is named after two firefighters who lost their lives while fighting a fire in a building with a roof made with lightweight construction material.
Since early 2016 a group of scientists from the Canadian Forest Service and colleagues from the Canadian provinces, the United States and Mexico have been working on a two-year plan to map the probability of wildires in most of the permanent settlements in Canada’s boreal forest.
A study conducted by researchers at the University of Edinburgh found firefighters exposed to extremely high heat experienced elevated core body temperatures for up to four hours after exposure and their blood became “stickier” and more likely to form clots.