I dont think the link is working.

Link is definitely not working. Too bad, as it looks like a spectacular video. I think. I saw the smoke and flames from the bowl area this afternoon. Amazing amount of thick black smoke

I believe I have corrected the problem by linking it to You Tube...
It is worth seeing.

Elaine Macdonald

Sad, Had a few good times in that ole building.

Hanger was built during the war, very sad.

From my house I can see most of the bowl looking south and I notice on events like this what happens with the smoke is it rises up, heads west about to the middle of the bowl around central, and then drops down into the bowl where it circulates with the air in the bowl. I find that very interesting from a pollution perspective. I noticed a similar pattern with the NCP fire a few years ago.

I view these vents like a free die test of the local air shed that we should utilize when it comes to where we should be developing industry for future generations.

With all that smoke that went into the bowl it would be interesting to see if the environmental monitors even picked up the difference... surely they would pick up something I would hope?

With that said my condolences to those that worked there. Thats a tough way to loose a place of employment. I think I flew out of there a few times when I was a kid to Tumbler Ridge when they were building the town.

Devastating, I know a guy who kept his machines there.

We arrived at the airport at 3pm as the wife was flying to Van. At this time the whole building was engulfed with atleast 15 or more firetrucks on site. WESTJET did an outstanding job at keeping all the passengers informed an the agents where awesome as my wife had a 79 yr old mother waiting in Van for her as they where travelling to Halifax the agent tracked the mother down put her in their care it is why will never travel other than with WESTJET

CBC National news has the following headline:

Blaze consumes northern B.C. airport terminal

Good thing it was NOT the airport terminal!

I hope that the rebuilding of NT Air structure will start as soon as possible.

Best news: No one was hurt and the planes were saved as well.

Such fires happen. Hopefully when/if it will be rebuilt they will be allowed to use steel rather than wood and will have something like a deluge foam fire suppression included as is shown on the YouTube videos associated with the video above.

BTW, when I saw the smoke from the bowl, I was not sure if it was just another exercise for firemen at the airport, a building at the airport was on fire, or a plane had crashed.

With Fire Trucks and crews stationed at the Airport I wonder why they werent able to get this fire under control: The Airport Fire Trucks couldnt have been more than 3 blocks away.

I was just reading some other sites which had information about the fire. It appears that not much help was provided by the firefighters who are on the site since they are only trained in fighting aircraft fires, not building fires.

Strange. Wonder if they will take another look at that policy now.

My comments come from this firegihters' blog.

http://www.firehouse.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1125082

Not only that, but firefighters at airports should also be specialists in the types of hazardous materials used at airports and be able to more frequently inspect buildings and ajacent areas for hazardous conditions which develop over time due to lax care and maintenance.

State of Hawaii airport firefighter job description.

http://www.arff.info/forums/archive/index.php/t-7497.html

Recruitment Number 208141 - Shiftwork - Statewide Employment - $3,652 per month effective July 1, 2008

Duties Summary: As a fully competent crew member, fight aircraft crash fires and rescue the injured and other occupants of aircraft; check airport facilities for fire safety and fight building fires, including rescue; stay on standby detail on crash trucks during emergency landings and other situations; and perform other related duties as assigned.

Being almost 70 year old Fir timbers ... that are as dry as popcorn fart .... given that the they suspect NE corner offices (unless things have changed alot since I was last in that building ... thats Lease space) the temps were bloody cold last week and that building isnt exactly weather proof ... I will dollars to donuts that the fire was started by a lil space heater under a desk...

with the main construction of that building and given what the timbers have been exposed to over the years ..... there was nothing that anyone could have done...

They say that no one has been injured.. It hasn't officially been confirmed but there is a man in that fire!
Lets pray for the wonderful family in mourning....

NT Air says it expects to be fully operational Monday despite Saturday's devastating fire at the Prince George Airport. The fire engulfed the massive NT Air Hanger within a couple of hours. General Manager Bill Hesse (HESS) credited his maintenance engineers with saving more than a million dollars of equipment. Hesse says the workers pulled 8 aircraft out of the building, along with tool boxes and technical records within the first hour of the fire. A plan is being developed to temporarily shuffle employees throughout the NT Air chain, distributing them to bases in Smithers and Vancouver. He expects operations will be completely functional Monday morning

A friend that is the Deputy Fire Chief in Saskatoon had a similar problem about 10 years ago in that city. He explained to me then that structure fires are TOTALLY different from aircraft fires and the methods and tactics to combat them have totally different methods. In fact methods to fight aircraft fires have changed too. When under Transport Canada control, the intent was to get into an aircraft. Now the focus is just to clear a path outside an aircraft for the passengers to escape. But that is another story. My condolences to all the folks at NT Air for their loss.

It is very true that structural fires and aircraft fires are quite different. However, they also have considerable similarities.

I don't think I have to go into what those might be. Many can tell us that information from training and prctical experience.

The key is, people can learn more than one thing, especially if they are not actually applying the knowledge and skills they have on a full time basis. I mean, how many airplane emergencies does the airport have per year? How many structural fires are there per year?

It is apparent that some. maybe not all, other jusrisdictions have the capacity at the airport to provide full fire security at the airport. Maybe it is as simple as that it is not allowed by the union. If that is so, then it is a man made "legal" barrier, which is not really a physicial barrier and thus should be able to be overcome.

The other thing. The building code is a MINIMUM code. If one wants to truly protect their built facilities, one should do more than just the MINIMUM, especially when one is located remotely as it has now become apparent. I wonder if insurance companies realized that fire fighing capacity was not as close that is would appear to be?

According to a CBC news release, the Airport Authority is responsible for he Aviation side of the airport, and the City of Prince George is responsible for the structures. Because of this protocol the Airport Authority Crews watched the fire progress while waiting for the arrival of the PG Engines. (8 Miles away)

The fire was reported at 230pm however the Engines did not arrive until 300pm.

Hopefully we will get a more up to date analysis of what happened out there, as this has very serious conotations. What if the building on fire had been the Terminal Building, which is much closer to the fueling area????

I was always under the impression that the City had fire fighters stationed at the Airport. Was this true in the past, and were they relocated to town, or were they never posted there.???

In any event this is a very scary scenario.

If and when they rebuild, which they will eventually, here is hoping that city hall has nothing to do with it. Airport land not the city's lookout? Hope so. If any one remotely connected to this building is reading this, please build it bigger AND better. The guy who built my attached garage said if I built it too small I will regret it. It is a three car garage. Still not enough room. I say this because when they built Eastside Marios, the city wouldn't let them build it any bigger. I bet they (Marios) regrets that. Then there was the Husky restaurant out in the BC Rail site. They (Husky) wanted a larger cafe. The city said no again. Numbnuts running this city. You can quote me on that.

Anyone notice a trend? First it was the Yellowhead Inn. Then later it was the plywood plant out there in the BC Rail site. Now, it is this old hangar and offices at the airport. Maybe the Treasure Cove Casino should have a bookie to take bets on what will burn down next in this town. Might take another year or two, but the bet left with the bookie could earn interest while yer waiting.

So the Airport Fire Hall would watch the Airport burn down, only why some Rule says we fight Airplane Fires only. Don't you remember Rule Number 1, you brake the Rules.
I tell you one Thing there are to many Rules in this World.

This is as rediculous as it comes. A fire department watches a structure burn due to a jurisdiction issue. If the missing man has died in this fire, someone's head should roll. One excuse i've read is the airport dept. isn't trained in structural fires. WWHHAATT? Turn the freakin hose on the flames. There's your training.

Yup heads need to roll for sure. To have a firefighting crew stand by while a building burns with a man in it is a complete failure of competence to break silly rules when silly rules need to be broken. They didn't have to enter the building like the employees, but at least make an effort....

The airport authority and the city of PG should have to answer for this for sure. Complete incompetence to not have a contingency plan in place for such a scenario.

Also thats a lot of jobs. Potentially a few hundred jobs lost that are all high paying jobs. Hopefully PG doesn't lose those jobs permanently. In the wake of Winton Global, Rustads, NCP, and Mackenzie those are a lot of high paying jobs no longer found around PG.

Just playing devil's advocate, but let's say that the airport fire crew (not trained in structural fire fighting) fights the fire and one or more people get hurt (or worse). Their insurance plans would then have due cause not to cover those fire fighters. Is it worth it?

It's unfortunate to have to think this way, but this is how the world works.

Obviously, the fire crews at the airport should have upgraded training to fight all types of fires. But I don't really blame them for letting the city fire fighters take care of this one.

ok ...to the arm chair idiots that dont know any better ...

the airports pumper trucks carry about 2000 gals of water .... they have a turret on the top ..and a turret on the bumper .. and are set up to fight Jet A fuel ... they go through that water load in approx 30 seconds of a fine spray ... the concept of that is that Av gas and jet A etc... burn alot differant than wood ...and teh spray in a nut shell suffocates the fuel fire and then hot spots etc can be taken care of with hand lines

and utterly useless techniuqe with a structure fire ....

MRPG has it right with liability issue as well .. but will just table that ...

there are pics up on the Av Canada forums and a way better news story with better pics on another Aviation based newsservice ... Quicker too ... I noticed that the PG citizen published this story faster than 250 as well once agin we will just table that ...
Point is .. it sure looks like in those pics that the YXS crews werent just sitting around ...

http://www.flightsource.ca/blog/flightdeck/?p=1180#more-1180

http://www.avcanada.ca/forums2/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=60964

The airport crews are not trained in structural firefighting, and they are not a fire dept, it is a maintenance department with yearly training in ARFF. So I would guess they were out cleaning the runway. Really, its a joke. Too bad thats the way the airport wants to run there operation this way. Farmers trained to spray water is what they are. And no they probably werent sitting around, they were clearing snow from the runway, there busy.

There is a volunteer fire department, trained in structure fires, not far from the airport. Unfortunately, the PG city FD refuses to work with volunteers because "volunteer departments are taking jobs away from union city employees". How fast could the volunteer department have been on the scene? Could a life have been saved if they attended? We will never know.

"Just playing devil's advocate, but let's say that the airport fire crew (not trained in structural fire fighting) fights the fire and one or more people get hurt (or worse). Their insurance plans would then have due cause not to cover those fire fighters. Is it worth it?"

I think we have differnt points here.

I was not one to say that these individuals should have done much to assist with the fire.

What I am sayuing is that the airport buildings obvioyusly do not have the protection they should have.

To my mind there needs to be a change.

1. the owners of buildings should take reasonable precautions to protect their buildings by ensuring that fires do not happen in the first place. That means increased inspections. The City Fire Dept. can help with that. If a building has tinder dry wood that is 60 years old, that is not unique to old buildings. I assume some people knew the building was that old. On top of that, with hanger dors open, the place is full of good air to help the combustion process along, as opposed to a closed building.

2. The owners should mitigate the loss should a fire occur by installing appropriate automatic fire suppression systems. In the case of hangers, a combination foam and water system is likely appropriate. I assume none was installed.

3. Response services should be available within reasonable time. 20 or 30 minutes is not reasonable when there are people there who are half the way there in their knowledge, skills and attitude to fight fires. They just need some addtional tools and knowledge base to dight structural fires as well. It is done in other jurisdictions and there is absolutley no reason why it cannot be done here. It might cost some additional money, but it is the most cost effective way to get to a higher level of mitigation capacity.

4. Then there is the matter of human lives. We are not sure whether one has been lost or not. if not, it could happen the next time.

In my mind, the level of due diligence was just what I would have expected it to be for an airport. I think all parties at the airport, and the City who this airport belongs to should take the blame and need to take some action to improve on current conditions.

We have many fire chiefs getting over $100,000/year. They need to take some responsibility for inscidents such as this for that kind of salary.

Was just re-reading after posting. Sure could use an editing system that allows editing on line afterwars.

That sentence in the second to last paragraph should read:
"In my mind, the level of due diligence was just NOT what I would have expected it to be for an airport"

Yes jales4, I knew about that but was unsure of the jurisdictional dispute there. Figured there must be one.

This is the level to which we work at this time in our history. A crying shame. Yet they have all these integrated emergency exercises. They just had one recently. They train for complex situations and botch the simpler and most common ones.

All your suggestions are great gus, and with a significant amount of time and money they could probably all be addressed.

A fire chief could probably find something wrong in every building he walked into.

How do you define 'reasonable' protection precautions? I'm sure if you asked ten people, you'd get ten different answers.

jales4,

Would you like somebody to come and volunteer in your place of work?

yes there is a volunteer fire department within 5 kms of the airport and they surely could have been at the airport long before the half hour that it to took the city I just hope that the people that need to look at the fire and maybe the loss of a life will start making the city finally work with the volunteers on fires that border the city

Half Hour? How far is the airport from your city. In our city Emergency services can be at our airport within 5 to 7 minutes. It must be a long drive, especially going code 3?

The closest City fire station with people that can supposedly fight structural fires and are all union card carrying firemen with accredited managers and chiefs and wahtever else is needed, are 15.1km away via Ellis Road (southern approach) which takes about 20 minutes by car. So, given afternoon traffic and lights etc. etc. even with emergency vehicles, plus the road conditions, 30 minutes to the time they actually have some machinery in place ready to do something sounds reasonable.

Once more, if the airport fire group was trained, they would have been right there in waht? 5 minutes? The volunteer fire department in 15 minutes?

I wonder if anything will come of this? It will likely just go down in the books as "oh well, another fire". Unless, of course, someone was killed in the fire.

Smoke2008,

No, I wouldn't like volunteers to come and work in my workplace, decreasing my income.

Do you have ANY idea how much it would cost some level of government to staff every department in BC? Need 5 to roll a truck 24/7 for less than a dozen fire calls per volunteer department per year (those numbers a guesstimate)?

Do you propose that the city covers all the outlying areas as well? Do you realise that 30 minute response times (or longer) would be the norm? That saving homes and businesses (and people!) wouldn't happen, and the fire crews would only respond to contain the fire to one structure?

So, volunteers, bless them, will exist.

I am a union member and I support unions - up to where they get stupid like this.

Could the PG Canfor fire damage have been lessened if the PG Department allowed the many volunteer departments around PG to assist them? (That were standing by, ready to assist, but told they weren't needed).

Could this hangar have been saved if a FD closer to the location responded? From the photos, it was a small fire initially, as people managed to remove planes and equipment. With no inside knowledge, I am only assuming that a faster response time would have equaled a better outcome.

The PGFD is one of the very few departments in BC who has this mentality.
Union jobs before lives, before saving homes and businesses, before common sense!

This situation has to be looked into and we need a clear understanding as to what actually took place.

The person who phoned 911 from the Airport stated that he phoned at 230pm and the Fire Trucks arrived at 300pm. So if this is so, we know it took them 30 Minutes. Was there any communiction between the PG Fire Department and the Airport Fire Department while the PG Trucks were responding. Also we should remember that the 911 call probably went through Kamloops. There may have been some commuication problems.

It seems to me that a number of years ago the City had firemen stationed at the Airport. Was this changed when the Airport Authority was established?. As I recall the Airport Authority did a lot of cross training, and reduced their manpower by approx 20 people. Did this have any bearing on their ability to react to a major problem.

The Airport Authoritys website on the History of the Airport has the following paragraph, which was applicable in 2005.

**The Prince George Airport Authority and the City of Prince George signed an accord to establish mutually agreeable arrangements to delineate principles and define a mechanism to achieve specific operating agreements where neccessary; and provide a firm footing for ongoing consultations to assure both the City and the Authority of appropriate certainty in their relationship***

One could assume from this that there is some sort of understanding between the City and the Airport Authority on how fires for structural buildings will be handled.

If the Airport Authority is responsible for Aviation fires only, and the response time for the City to get to the Airport is 30 Minutes, then you effectively have no fire protection for buildings at the Airport. This does not seem possible, and one would think that there is something missing from what has been reported to date.

Hopefully we can get an update by Opinion 250 sometime in the not to distant future.

An unbelievable bureaucratic statement that says nothing!!!!!!
--------------------------
**The Prince George Airport Authority and the City of Prince George signed an accord to establish mutually agreeable arrangements to delineate principles and define a mechanism to achieve specific operating agreements where neccessary; and provide a firm footing for ongoing consultations to assure both the City and the Authority of appropriate certainty in their relationship***
---------------------
If one reads it for content it says in the first part:
They will do something where necessary .... but it may not have been necessary so they did not actually do those things.

Then it says that they will keep on consulting each other to make sure they understand their relationship clearly ....

As in "you keep out of my territory and we will keep out of yours."
---------------------------------

The statement says zilch!!!!!! Typical!!!!!

I would expect an agreement between the City an the Airport to list those things where they have some integrated roles.

Example, fire protection.

Thus, with respect to fire protection:

The City will ......... for instance, provide structural fire coverage with a maximum response time of 15 minutes.

The Aiport will ........ for instance, with respect to structural fires, provide emergency response within 5 minutes to mitigate loss of life

You know, the KISS principle .....

Gus. Somewhere in the hyperbole there has to be an understanding on the responsibilities of the Airport and the City in regards to structural fires.

Hopefully we will get some clarification.

Ok ... once agian .. to the Jackass' that think they can do better

from recent Memory .... The Yellowhead Inn ...to the ground ... FD 10 blocks away and can be there in 5 mins .. Realistically 10 ish

NCP half way to the airport via south route .. so about a 15 min response ... Burned to the ground

The Columbus hotel .. downtown 2 blocks away from the main Firehall the trucks didnt even have to roll to get water on the damn thing ...burned to the ground


Hell city reponse to the hospital is a little more than 7 minutes from when the bells go and the fire system auto dials the monitoring company

with the exception of the Yellowhead .. all fairly old buildings ....

the city coulndt do anything with anyone of those buildings any they are totally equiped...
How anyone thinks that a crew designed to fight vehical fires .... remember there is no way for a cross over unit to be effective with both types of fires under discussion...could have done anything in this case is totally assinine.

I personally have intimate knowledge of that old hanger as I spent alot of days inside that place growing up. So I feel that I am a little qualified to talk about this

Oh and whomever said above about the 911 call going through Kamloops ... it was on a saturday ... it probally went though Texas someplace

The age of the buildings is not the main factor in how quickly a building burns to the ground.

Some key factors:

1. Building contents - the combustibles load as well as the way that load is stored

2. Building compartmentalization - are there fire separations - 1 hour, 2 hour, etc. between different parts of buildings.

3. Fire suppression systems - sprinkler systems, supplemented with foam systmes in the case of hangars and automotive shops, etc.

4. Building materials - ideally that do not contribute to the combustible load

5. HAVAC systems that shut down and are dampered properly at fire separations when an alarm goes or sprinklers are activated.

6. Windows and other exterior wall/roof closures - should stay in place as long as possible so that fre is not fed with exernal air/oxygen.

A building is not a throw-away thing. It is a substantial investment and it is typically best if it is kept up to standard, even though it may not have to be, to protect the lives of people who occupy the property and the investment in the poperty.

Many people do not understand that. Those who operate industrial buildings such as sawmills, pulp,mills and other manufacturing facilties certainly understand that much better than I would expect someone who occupies a Hangar with a few offices to understand that same principle.

Again, we are a throw it away society. It also can result in an unsafe society.

I do not know what the cause of the fire was. That hangar did not have to burn to the ground for many reasons. In fact, the fire could have been confined to the office or storage area it was likely started in.