The City of Surrey received a 2013 Community Health and Safety Program Excellence Award from the International City/County Management Association for its approach to fire prevention through a targeted smoke alarm giveaway program. The program sends firefighters door-to-door and has cut fire losses in half, increased smoke alarm activations and reduced fire size and spread.
Good news from the NFPA. On-duty firefighter deaths in 2012were the second lowest in 35 years and the number of sudden cardiac arrests was the lowest on record.
Chrysler Corp. recalls 2.7 million older model Jeeps over fuel tanks that can rupture and cause fires in rear-end collisions. The recall affects approximately 180,000 vehicles in Canada.
The BC Wildfire Act allows the province to recover wildfire suppression costs from people deemed responsible for causing the fire. Ability to pay is not a factor.
Fire officials have not confirmed the exact cause but say the home had 40 year old cellulose insulation in the attic. Cellulose resembles finely shredded newspaper with a fire resistant spray on it. This article says that the spray wears off leaving an extremely flammable material.
The state-of-the-art emergency centre at CFB Esquimalt replaces a Second World War era building too small for the department’s needs.
NASA’s Aqua satellite collected this natural-color image with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer. Actively burning areas are outlined in red. The three fires shown here are more than 100 hectares in size (>247 acres).
Eight houses will be burned to test ventilation methods used to prevent or at least delay flashover. In conjunction with the experiments, the International Society of Fire Service Instructors (ISFSI) will videotape and develop training modules that will be available to firefighters across the US.
A Massachusetts firefighter has designed a new roof anchor that provides a secure and stable working platform for firefighters as they use chainsaws and other tools to cut into roofs.
Thunder Bay professor and students to test programming drones for smoke and fire detection.