Until recently, South Almaguin firefighters had to travel to Port Sydney or the now-closed Ontario Fire College in Gravenhurst to get hands-on experience with live fire training.
Now, a new live burn facility right in their own backyard is giving them the opportunity to train more regularly and effectively.
Perry Township’s new fire chief, Doug Holland, told Almaguin News it allows firefighters to experience the heat and smoke and act out different scenarios in a semi-controlled environment.
“We can do different evolutions because it’s two stories, we can enter from the upper story and act like we’re fighting a fire in the basement,” said Holland. “We can add walls and take away walls — it changes it up each time.”
The versatility of the facility is important for both new and experienced firefighters and allows for the crews to get live training so they are able to prepare before attending an actual event.
“It allows our experienced firefighters to learn new techniques … new ways of tackling a fire. It allows our new recruits an opportunity to experience a live fire in a safe environment,” he explained. “We don’t always have a lot of structure fires, so we have to be able to train before we get to a live event.”
The burn unit supports seven municipalities in Almaguin: Perry, McMurrich/Monteith, Burk’s Falls, Armour, Ryerson, Magnetawan and Kearney.
Kearney’s fire chief, Paul Schaefer, said having the facility gives the fire departments the flexibility to train when they want.
“If we have a lot of people around on a Wednesday night, we can do it on a Wednesday night,” said Schaefer. “It gives us the ability to train when we want and train to the NFP standard that we need to stay trained to.”
Schaefer also extended his gratitude to all the councils that saw the need for the burn unit.
“The fact that they saw it was going to be a very valuable asset to all the municipalities up here and to give the firefighters a chance to train like they have to. I definitely appreciate all the support from council,” he said.
Burk’s Falls, Ryerson and Armour’s fire chief, Joe Readman, said having the burn unit is a huge win for the local fire departments.
“It’s a huge thing to have especially to ourselves — it sounds greedy, but it’s not,” said Readman, explaining that the goal was to build something that would last at least 20 years for the seven municipalities.
“So by keeping it just for our department uses, it’s going to keep that lifespan of the full 20 years,” he added.
“We’re going to put what we put into it out of it and it’s just going to up the level of service in the area.”