MD OF BIGHORN – Roughly 60 firefighters will be taking part in a training exercise that will focus on railway disaster response Saturday (March 18).
The course is offered by the Transportation Community Awareness and Emergency Response Initiative (TRANSCAER) and is the first time MD of Bighorn firefighters will be taking part.
“What they do, is they have a community outreach program,” said Andrew Box, fire chief for the MD of Bighorn. “They have a number of live props and they come out to the communities across the country and deliver free training for first responders in how to deal with a rail car type of emergency.”
The day-long session starts with a presentation in the morning, followed by in-field training that includes five exhibits detailing transportation best practices and emergency preparedness activities. The afternoon session will take place at the Lafarge plant in Exshaw.
“It starts with a little bit of theory in a classroom and as firefighters we have a limited time allowance so I am told it will be quite focused,” Box said. “We will go over the information they present. This will be a lot of hands-on.”
Five rail cars will be moved onto Lafarge property so the firefighters can work with actual rail cars in order to train.
“We are going to get this put on thanks to our neighbours at Lafarge, who are offering us use of the rails on one of their lines,” Box said. “I know there is a valve car that shows us the different valves on the cars that they have running up and down. They will also have some emergency response equipment of their own, to give us awareness should we have a large scale incident.”
The event came about because Box had seen it advertised by the Alberta Association of Fire Chiefs. He took it back to his training officers who reached out and were instrumental in getting it set up for their members. Now, the MD hopes to bring in other fire departments to be part of the training.
“We are opening this session up beyond Bighorn to our partners in Morley, Kananaskis, Canmore, Banff and Cochrane,” Box said. “They can facilitate up to 60 people with this training.”
Constant training is critical to the success of a fire department in saving lives and mitigating disasters. For Box, this sort of training is invaluable to build the skillset of firefighters.
In June, Canmore hosted its largest fire exercise in more than a decade. It involved more than 13 agencies such as fire crews from the Town of Banff, Kananaskis Improvement District, the MD of Bighorn, Alberta Wildfire, Canada Task Force 2 and Alpine Helicopters.
The exercise involved the activation of the Town of Canmore’s emergency coordination centre, an incident command post and a facsimile evacuation order for a fake wildfire that spread across multiple jurisdictions in the Bow Valley.
“As a municipality, we have a municipal emergency management plan and within that plan we identify a number of risks that residents of the Bow Valley may be subjected to,” Box said. “With the amount of cargo and materials that are transported to the Bow Valley on a daily basis, this is one that is rather significant due to the quantity and types of goods that are transported through the area. It is critical we provide the proper protective measures should an event occur.”
