The citizens of Irricana talked and Rocky View County (RVC) seems to have listened. The Volunteer Community Wildland Firefighter Pilot Program, announced April 30, comes less than a month after RVC and Irricana residents reached a spirited compromise in how grassfires should be handled in the area.
On April 5, when citizens of Irricana and surrounding area gathered at Irricana’s Station 56 to vent their frustrations about the County’s response to an April 2 structure fire, things got heated.
“The way that we handle a situation is not the way that the public perceives they would handle a situation,” said RVC Fire Chief Ken McMullen.
“That’s simply because they’re not trained to deal with it and we have two different perspectives.
“Ours is on a risk-management perspective, theirs is on the fact that it’s their property.”
The April 2 structure fire, at Township Road 264 and Range Road 262, spread quickly to surrounding grasslands and came close to neighbouring homes. At the April 5 meeting, two dozen Irricana residents came face-to-face with McMullen, Station 56 Chief Kelly Saunders, Councillor Greg Boehlke and Reeve Rolly Ashdown. Many of the complaints from the community centred on response time and citizens being denied the opportunity to help put out the blaze by RVC firefighters on scene.
McMullen said the pilot program, which runs from May 1 to Oct. 1 (wildland fire season), is currently looking for 12 community volunteers. He said the program is a condensed version of the National Fire Prevention Association’s wildland firefighting certification program.
“We have minimal criteria, they have to take the course, they have to pass the exam and those people that pass will be selected from,” McMullen said.
Those not selected will be considered- next year if the program is extended beyond a pilot project, he added.
McMullen said the full-day course would explain the rules and regulations RVC firefighters must abide by in firefighting situations, as well as the gear required and the rationale for needing the specific equipment. Once certified, the volunteers will be allowed to report to an incident commander at the scene of a wildland fire and participate in controlling the blaze. McMullen said the pilot program’s main focus is safety and all volunteers will be instructed in how to work as part of a team, taking direction from an experienced commanding officer.
“We do a personal accountability review on scene so the incident commander knows who’s on scene, where they are and what they’re doing,” McMullen said.
“They’re not allowed on the fireground at any time with respect to structures or within the proximity of structures.”
McMullen said the volunteers’ equipment would be attached to a fixed apparatus (such as a fire engine), which will give the incident commander the ability to issue equipment as community members sign-in at the scene. One of the criticisms RVC faced at the April 5 meeting was that many farmers in Irricana and the nearby Mountain View Hutterite Colony have firefighting “disks” and water trucks of their own, but they were not allowed to use the equipment at the April 2 fire. McMullen said citizens would be able to volunteer their equipment if they don’t wish to join the pilot program and the incident commander would delegate its use at the scene.
Citizens interested in volunteering, can fill out an application at www.rockyview.ca
