Geez...let's pump some more toxic smoke into the air shed.

Geez. I'd rather that the emergency crews train themselves adequately with as real situations as possible. You can only do so much in a classroom.

faxman
I have been with a volunteer fire department for 20 years now and we spend most of our practice time pretending we are fighting fire without one. As MrPG says the realism of an actual(controled)fire goes a long ways towards bringing all that training together. Also live burn training is part of achieving firefighter certification.

Crashed short of the main runway???? I thought they just extended it. Must have had engine trouble, eh?

I am glad to see that Prince George is involving multi agencies in simulation exercises that are anticipating mass casualties. Good job and keep it going. We are a large enough city, where this will definately occur at some point.
Money well spent!

There's no need to add to the pollution problem even if it is the in guise of "practicing". Seriously, if you want to practice on a real fire head 15 or so minutes out of town and have a blast. Air quality in this town is bad enough as is.

wavoes...you sound like a class guy.

Faxman, I am not trying to offend, but I disagree with you! I believe that true disaster simulations need real fire, and true pressures created to appear as realistic as possible.

No matter what type of practice scenario involved, be it fire, screams, injuries, or true panic, this type of simulation tries to emulate chaos that most of us can not imagine.

Sadly, without realistic simulations, rescue personnel and all organizations involved with safety and protection, lose individuals to the emotional turmoil of the real event. Just look at Hurricane Katrina, or the events of 911 in New York and Washington DC and you will understand the importance of these types of drills.

I agree. They need real fires. Those are little camp fires. Here is a real fire with real PPE to be worn when fighting them. The training in the picture is required once a year to remain certified.

http://www.167aw.ang.af.mil/shared/media/photodb/photos/040921-F-5469R-027.jpg

It is worth pouring "toxic smoke" for a short time to make sure the airport and local emergency crews are up to standard in their emergency skills.

I know someone that was fined by the MOE for burning an old shed in the Pineview area while the airport was practising fire fighting last year. Huge pumes of smoke coming from the airport and a smaller one in Pineview. MOE all over the public but it's OK for others. I do agree with training but.......

If it was your home burning, or your family in medical distress the air quality probably would be the least of your worries.

The students acting in the scenario were 19 John McInnis students and 1 PGSS student. The makeup and setup of the bus crash/scenario was done by Paul Coupe from Duchess Pk and myself, from John McInnis, with help from the PG Airport Authority.

These Guy's are doing everthing possible to keep themselves and their equipment in top shape so that one day they are going to be able to save someone's life, maybe even yours or mine, --- and we get complaints about a few minutes of SMOKE eminating from this crucial, critical, (and mandatory) exercise ???

UNBELIEVABLE !!!

Take your picket signs, and your complaint flyers, and go down to the pulpmills, or the pellet plant(s), or the chemical plant, or the asphalt plants, where they're belching toxic fumes every day !!

palomino

"There's no need to add to the pollution problem even if it is the in guise of "practicing"."

"In the guise of paracticing" ????

Are you suggesting the drill was nothing more than a reason to intentionally affect air quality? Give me a break.

The visibility of such emergency preparedness exercises raises a number of questions about emergency preparedness in general.

1. Are we prepared for another fast rising water flood such as is caused by ice dams on the river? We had a real such occurance. How are we doing with preparedness for the next one?

2. Are we prepared for another train car derailment or such other incident which could cause more than an oil spill and fire as it did the last time and involve a more volatile and poisonous gas and require major population evacuation for one or more days to where?

3. How are we doing with those emergency fire drills in apartment buidlings, hotels, office buildings?

4. How about emergency drills in the major factories?

5. How about emergency response drills at hospitals? Was the hospital involved with the drill at the airport? Is it ready to take 60 people from a plane that were lucky enough to survive a crash?

Finally, in which of those cases do we have to use real chlorine for simulation or build real ice dams in the winter in side channels. How far does "real" have to go? What is learned from having billowing black smoke from real oil as opposed to simple sight obscuring smoke created from relatively benign chemicals?

The airport has regulations it must follow. How about the rest of the community? Why do we get to know about the airport exercises but not the rest?

Maybe they need to send some flares up the next time they do theirs, if they do, so that we become aware of them.

Wow. It was just a drill. Sheesh.

Also the wind was west

How do you learn how to put out an oil, plastic, rubber, magnesium, etc. fire by hosing down a burning woodpile, gus ?

For maximum effect, and to cover as many scenarios as possible, these disaster drills are, and have to be as realistic as possible!

That's also why they use real people to act as "victims" instead of scattering a bunch of manikins smeared with ketchup around the scene.

I have to say that many people have no idea what's involved until they actually have to respond to one of these incidents. Of course, many haven't.

I have personally responded to real situations and mock ones. The experience is invaluable.

When you have a fire, a plane down, a bus full of kids involved as well as other challenges, knowing what to do first and who is going to do what becomes critical. Who fights the fire, who attends to the MVA (bus), who does the rescue for the pilots in the water bomber, what about exposures (surrounding potential)

Where does the Airport begin? With the fire and plane down (probably) Who gets called next, Pineview Fire Department, or Prince George Fire Rescue, then who attends to what incident? What part of the incident is in the city and what part is outside the city? Does the city Fire Department back up the airport and Pineview attend the MVA on Johnson Rd?

Oh, don't forget that the only way to transport patients to the hospital is by Ambulance. Fire departments are not equipped to transport people. What about traffic control? What about chemical spills like fuel? Do your call the environmental people? Or, do you call those trained and skilled in the handling of such things as CN Rail and the Pulp Mills?

I could go on and on. I think you get the drift. Every multiple incident such as the one described above could be a potential disaster or a well organized response by many of our Emergency personel working together in the city. The more experience and practice they have, the better equipped they are to do as good a job as they are capable of.

Anyone who is critical of this exercise has never been involved in one and has no idea of the value of being prepared ahead of time.

I'm as concerned as anyone about air quality, but we are not talking about burning a slash pile here. Some things just have to be done. You have no idea how to attack a real fire like the one described until you have attacked one. You can't pretend a fire. It's as real and as dangerous at the practice as a real incident. This is very serious and should not be taken lightly.

We have dangerous goods travelling through our city every day. If you had any idea of the potential, you would be very supportive of all preventative training exercises our emergency personel use to prepare for such an event. No, we probably can't prepare for every single possible event, but we can prepare for as many as we can.

"How do you learn how to put out an oil, plastic, rubber, magnesium, etc. fire by hosing down a burning woodpile, gus ?"

Interesting question. I could be quick and say the same way that we first learned how to put a man on the moon ..... amongst other scenarios, go to Sudbury and practice in the middle of the baren countryside.

If you want to learn how to put out the fires only, the location is irrelevant to that practice, isn't it?

And do we use chlorine to learn how chlorine gas spreads on a calm day? On a windy day? How quickly someone is succumbed by it? The reaction on someone's body?

We are remote enough here that we do not need to have an oil fire going in a location close to residential areas. Move 10 km away and there will be no one within several km radius unless they happen to be going for a hike or ATV ride in the woods. What could be simpler than that?

"Oh, don't forget that the only way to transport patients to the hospital is by Ambulance"

Guess you have not been in a real emergency situation in that case, have you? Ever hear of triage?

Chester. This reporting has reminded me of those things that I wrote about in a previous post, which includes some of the info you provided. This happens every three years it states to retain their credentials. I do not think that is strict enough. Annually would be much better.

The ambulances could not take part because of the strike. Guess what, if it was real, the strike would not matter. Obviously this was not real enough since they were told before hand to prepare for the exercise. In the real world, there is no warning!!!!

How many forest fires of 20 hectares or so are set every year so that forest fire crews can learn how to fight forest fires so that they do not get killed? How many different valley and wind scenarios and fuel conditions can be set up to be ready when the real thing comes along?

The few times that can happend is when there is a controlled burn of standing timber because a silvicultural prescription calls for it. If it were not for that, such exercises would not happen. The learning happens mainly from following up on real fires.

How much learning is done in these kind of cases from real life situations? How many computerized training simulations are available using a combination of real time scenarios as well as inserted acted components which are switched to with the various combinations and permutations resulting from the branch of the decision tree a person in charge might invoke as a result of a decision at each option point?

This exercise happend to be visible because of the smoke. What else do these people do to keep up with it? Where and when do they train for the other possbile fire situations?

This was far, far, more than just some
"firefighting" exercise!

And what's with the chlorine stuff ? I seriously doubt any chlorine was released in this exercise - or ever would be around multiple participating parties in an exercise like this, especially in close proximity to a public venue. Years ago I worked in a chemical plant that produced chlorine. We did many a training exercise to be prepared for an emergency or a "puff" as they called it, but never-ever released any real chlorine in those exercises. We did have a "puff" one day while I was in the control room, and to this day, I'm amazed at how far I had to get away from that building before I could take a breath without it gagging in my throat. Bottom line -- I'm still here today because I knew exactly what to do when it happened, and where to go without hesitation. That training stays with me today, and gives me confidence I would still have some experience to draw from if I were faced with another similar situation, and a toxic gas release.

As an employment requirement, we did quite a few fire - fighting exercises as well. I learned then, that doing the wrong thing in those situations, could actually cost lives, not save them - and thank goodness they did actual demonstrations with some of the real flamables we could encounter, so that the visions of that experience stick with me to this day. If I'd just been told to read about it in a book somewhere I'd have long forgotten most of it by now.

Anyway, I'm glad to know if we have a disaster near here, we have people who know what to do about it, thanks to training such as this, as well of course due to years and years of dedication to learning to be the best they can be.

Well done you Guy's and Gals!

I salute you.

palomino

Gus Come on really...?, "If you want to learn how to put out the fires only, the location is irrelevant to that practice, isn't it?" The firefighting is but one of the many facets that were practiced that day.
Again, here you state, "Obviously this was not real enough since they were told before hand to prepare for the exercise." I'm chuckeling at how wrong you are. As a participant I am afraid to infom you that you are HIGHLY misinformed.
And are you seriously endorsing firefighters and Emergency responce crews to sit down and do computer training to hone their skills? Really...? do you want our army to practice using halo2 or do you want them to use their real gun on targets? I dont know about you, but I want the people protecting me to react to real life situations on reflex, not level 10 gamers.
"Where and when do they train for the other possbile fire situations?" again so much misinformation..... PGFD trains every shift on a variety of topics to insure proficiency. and Volunteer fire Departments Train every week to insure the same. Maybe try helping your community and participating in highway rescue or a volunteer fire department if you arn't from the city, and then you can tell me when and where they train. lol.

Hey Gus, remember when you wrote this? "Oh, don't forget that the only way to transport patients to the hospital is by Ambulance" WRONG what if all the city ambulances are being used to transport and you still have more people? Buses, taxies, city buses. Come on think about it, 60, 70, 100 people need to go to the hospital, we dont have that many ambulances.... And who says they would all be going to the hospital, with an influx of that many people, Im sure some would be going to private clinics to ease the amount of people going to PGRH

"Guess you have not been in a real emergency situation in that case, have you? Ever hear of triage?" What do you think was happening with the first responders on the bus, Triage. (I'ts not just a fancy word hospitals throw out)

Sorry gus I misread you triage statement...

Somerled. I am assuming you realized that it was Chester whose words I was quoting. As you correctly stated, in an emergency one uses any reasonable vehicle that is available. Not everyone is going to have to be transported on a stretcher or spineboard. Even those can be put into helicopters as well as trucks.

Computer exercises? I say management exercises in small, independent groups, like the ones you have identified.

I will give you an example. There are businesses in the community who have have transport vehicles as part of their vehicle fleet. They are sometimes parked in the city while at other parts of the season they are not available. Are those businesses included in a city wide inventory of materielle and qualified people that can be called upon in a major emergency?

I asked some time ago about a comprehensive understanding of how to deal with a major emergency in this city. What is the process? Who practices the logistics of that?

My hat is off to all the people that were on the ground participating in the mock exercise from the Airport personnel all the volunteers and career firefighters everyone worked together for a common goal saving lives. As for dealing with a major emergency no one department can deal with any large scale events such as a plane crash at this incident there was only 24 patients of which two were deceased, even with these amount of people all the agencies would have been inundated, resource's tapped manpower overwhelmed. Volunteer fire departments train for a minimum of 2 hours once a week with extra training on weekends and they have to train for multi disciplines (first aid, rescue & fires) plus work full time 40+ hours per week and respond to calls. Gus maybe to answer your question about trying to understand the process you should call a volunteer fire hall or rescue agency and spend one training night with them and get to know them and what the do and how proud they are to help people in need.