With the holiday season fast approaching people are buying their Christmas trees and starting to plan their Christmas parties. A joyous time for many, but a busy time for some. Just ask the Thorold fire department.
Says fire chief Terry Dixon, “Winters are usually our busiest time for most types of calls. During the holidays cooking and candles are a big part of things. Do not leave candles out unattended, always unplug your Christmas tree if you’re not going to be home, and when you’re cooking make sure you’re staying in the kitchen.”
Dixon explains, “Cooking is still the number one factor in fires today. Stay in the kitchen with your cooking, don’t leave the room, don’t go lay down for a nap. Because we find sometimes people cook and then they go lay down and fall asleep.”
If a cooking fire does start it is always important to keep calm and contain the fire.
“If it’s a grease fire on the stove, you put the lid back on the pot and turn the burner off. Do not put water on grease fires and do not carry the pot on fire outside. It’s happened in the past and people have gotten severely burned by carrying the pot outside.”
To help with their needs, the fire department has recently recruited a new class of volunteer firefighters who will start their training in January.
“It’s a six month process and they work hard from January to June to do all kinds of in-class and physical training. In June we usually have their graduation class and then, come July 1, they are able to start right on the trucks as a firefighter.”
Being a volunteer firefighter is not a walk in the park.
“It’s a very big commitment, it’s time from your family and your own job, that you already have, and the demands of being a volunteer firefighter are a lot more than what they used to be. Putting in the time is much more demanding in today’s world.”
But for Dixon, who has been a firefighter for the City of Thorold for 38 years, helping people outweighs the demands and risks of the job.
“Being able to help those in need, that’s the most satisfying part of being a firefighter. Firefighting is dangerous every day. You just want to help people, right? The whole saying in the fire service is, ‘You risk a life to save a life,’ that’s just the nature of the job.”