This week at Strathroy-Caradoc Council was the Fire Department report for the 3rd quarter of 2022. Chief Brent Smith reported that in quarter 3, the department responded to 326 calls, including fires, motor vehicle collisions, medicals, burn permits, complaints, fire and safety complaints from the public, and other miscellaneous events. The department was also able to return to full public safety education including 9 Public Education events, which included: 5 community events like the downtown Market- Fire Prevention Booth, Pride in the Park, Sleepy Hollow, and Melbourne Agricultural Fair, and delivered extinguisher training to 55 staff members of the Strathroy Hospital and educate staff of Strathmere Lodge on the activation of their kitchen Suppression system.
Staff Development, Outside Training Regional Fire Training School
In the third quarter of 2022, 7 regular training sessions were conducted and completed by all three stations, consisting of Scenario-based training and preplanning. (Meridian, municipal arenas) In addition, five scheduled days of training were dedicated to Live Fire training by utilizing the OFC
Mobile Life Fire Training Unit. Enbridge did a session on natural gas safety.
Ten recruits have received a passing grade on the provincial testing for NFPA 1001 Levels 1 & 2 and are currently awaiting the results of Hazardous Material and Operations. On October 15, they completed their final testing to move them into 1st Class Firefighting Status. In addition, 8 Firefighters attended and completed the DZ Practical of the Driver’s license course through the Driver Certification Program of the Township of Malahide.
Recruits are working on 20 hours of drive time to allow their final road testing to obtain their full DZ license. There are seven existing firefighters continuing their education and training by attending Certification courses: Fire Investigator, Incident Safety Officer, Pumper Operations, and Surface Water Rescue.
written by: C. Soares