Training is just part of the job for an Airdrie firefighter, and it’s something they spend two to four hours doing each day.
“Collectively, we do well over 1,000 hours of training a month. When (the crews) are not looking after the equipment…or out doing inspections, they’re training,” said Airdrie Fire Department (AFD) Deputy Chief Training and Fire Prevention Ken Hubbard.
“What we like to see is our firefighters more or less re-qualify their professional qualification – which is the 1001 firefighter qualification – as well as pump operating, vehicle extrication, structural firefighting and some hazardous materials response initiatives throughout the year.”
While there is no provincial regulatory body to oversee firefighter training, the AFD has its own extensive program. Hubbard said the AFD uses buildings in the community as venues to practice skills.
“We have a number of partners (in the community) who help us out with that. We use the (City of Airdrie) Public Works facilities a fair bit. We go to multi-family (residential units) quite a bit,” he said. “We do some laddering with our aerial (equipment) so we can make sure we can reach some of those areas.”
According to Hubbard, the department is constantly looking at the skills the firefighters have and determining where they could use some training or refresher courses.
“They do some theory training – they go back over some of the basics and fundamentals, practice donning their rescue gear, ice rescue gear – and then they go out into some of the bays and actually do live training,” he said.
“Whatever we can’t do (at an actual building), we do in our bays.”
Both the Chinook Winds Station and the new Veteran’s Station (see story on page 2) have areas to allow the AFD to replicate real fire or emergency situations.
“It helps them to do search and rescue drills, confined spaces drills, survival drills in props we’ve built in house,” Hubbard said. “We use the hose tower at Chinook Winds a fair bit for hose evolution, mimicking getting out onto our roof, doing rescues with our rescue dolls to get the guys used to moving people and doing it safely – all those kinds of different things.”
Hubbard said the AFD often uses the Calgary Fire Department’s training centre. Each of the four Airdrie platoons spends a day each year training at the Calgary training tower.
Hubbard said the training can vary, depending on the time of year. Ice rescue training can obviously only take place early in the spring, while driver training is done on snowy roads.
“In the summer, we take our bush buggies out to the (Calgary International) airport and set up a track. We mimic grassfire firefighting with our trucks,” he said.
The AFD is part of the Calgary Regional Emergency Services Training (CREST) group, which includes departments from across southern Alberta. According to Hubbard, these departments, which are part of CREST, often participate in training together.
He said there are approximately 25 departments with CREST that consistently meet for training initiatives.
“We try to put some of our trainers together and maximize our efficiencies with expertise from a number of departments,” Hubbard said.
