The Thorold fire and emergency services have working hard this summer to finetune their operations and improve their skills.
Recently, Thorold Fire Stations 2 and 4 renewed their Superior Tanker Shuttle Service accreditation.
“In the rural areas there are no hydrants,” says Fire Chief Terry Dixon, in an interview with ThoroldToday. “To show insurance people that you have good fire coverage, rural departments can go for a tanker shuttle accreditation through the fire underwriters survey team.”
To become accredited, the fire department must take a test that sees them use their tanker trucks to deliver a minimum flow rate of 950 litres per minute within the first five minutes of arriving to the test site. They then have to be able to maintain this water flow for two hours straight.
“When you live in an urban area you got one of those yellow things sticking out the ground and a pumper shows up and hooks up to that and you got a constant water—it never runs out,” says Dixon. “It’s trying to give [people in rural areas] very close to the same as having a hydrant nearby.”
The Thorold fire deparment has been tanker shuttle accredited for the last ten years and this is the third time they had the accreditation renewed.
“We’ve really improved how we utilize our tanker system,” says Dixon. “I would say we have gotten better.”
Dixon says it’s important for residents in rural areas to bring up the accreditation with their insurance company.
“If they live in the rural areas of Thorold they should tell their insurance companies that our fire service here is tanker shuttle accredited,” he says. ”That should give them a break.”
But that's not all that the Thorold fire department has been up to. Last week, a barbecue brought together all four fire stations in Thorold.
“The municipality always puts on a barbecue for its employees,” says Dixon. “Being volunteer firefighters they can’t all attend during the day. I thought it was a great idea to be able to do something in the evening to appreciate them as part of the city.”
The Thorold fire department consists of 18 career firefighters and 76 volunteer firefighters that are spread out over four fire stations.
The barbecue was a great opportunity for all of them to get together, especially for the newly recruited volunteer firefighters.
“There was just a good feeling,” Dixon says. “It was good to have everybody in the same group. It was fun. Our firefighters are not divided in the Thorold fire service. Everybody is together: career, volunteers, districts. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, you are a Thorold fire fighter.”
One thing’s for certain: It’s been a good summer for the Thorold fire department
“Fire wise it’s been quiet,” says Dixon. “We had some but not that many. It’s been quite good. We haven’t had a significant grass fire this year. I think our weather has helped us with that. We’ve been busy with other things: car accidents, medical calls, those types of things.”
While it’s nice for local firefighters to be recognized with the Superior Tanker Shuttle Service accreditation and the barbecue, Dixon says that it’s important for the team to always keep improving.
“We had some rural house fires that we didn’t like how things were going so we had to sharpen our game a little bit,” he says. ”We learn from every fire. Every fire you will have there will be mistakes made and you’ll learn from that.”
Watch the Thorold firefighters take the test for the tanker shuttle accreditation:
