“If we can prevent all of the preventable fires, then we’ve done our job.”
Capt. Dwayne Ethier, regional training and fire prevention officer with the Bonnyville Regional Fire Authority (BRFA), stressed a major component of their annual open house is promoting fire safety.
“If we never have to respond to a fire, then we’ve done our job and that’s the whole purpose of fire prevention… for the most part, fires are fairly preventable other than natural causes,” he continued.
As part of National Fire Prevention Week in Canada from Oct. 6 to 12, the BRFA is hosting the open house from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Station 5 fire hall in Bonnyville.
“It’s just a really good way for us to be able to open our doors to the community,” explained Capt. Craig Wenzel. “One of the things for our hall is so the community can get to know us as the volunteer department in their community, and they can see some of the things that we do.”
One of the activities planned includes an air bag presentation.
“What’s trending across social media from the last little bit has been people with their legs up on the dashboard, so we’re going to do a demonstration on the dangers of that,” Ethier noted. “We’re also going to do a fire side-by-side demonstration to show the differences on a dry Christmas tree versus a watered Christmas tree, and sprinklers verses no sprinklers.”
Like everything in the open house, the demonstrations are meant to educate the public on fire safety.
“We usually talk along with it to give an idea of what we’re doing so they understand what’s happening, why we do it, and the end result of what we do,” Wenzel detailed.
The open house has been held in conjunction with National Fire Prevention Week for a number of years, and has only grown in popularity since it was launched.
“The community loves it, so we’ll keep it going as long as they do and as long as we’re getting the message out,” Ethier explained.
Another aspect of fire prevention week is firefighters going to schools, which Wenzel noted is his favourite part.
“I actually take the day off work so I can go to all the schools and visit the students. We get to see how excited they get when they get to race the fire fighters in some of the demonstrations that we do in putting on the fire gear,” he said.
The theme for this year’s fire prevention week is ‘not every hero wears a cape, plan and practice your escape.’
“We’re just trying to encourage people to plan an escape from their residence, their work place, or where ever it is and to practice it,” Ethier detailed. “Practising really helps when you need to do it without thinking about it in a stressful or emergency type situation. Practice makes perfect. You’ll end up finding your way out of the house when you need to at the correct time, and you can track everybody to make sure they get out of the house.”
Ensuring there’s a safe way out of every room in the house is important, especially for areas like basements where it could be difficult.
“If you can’t make it out the door, part of the planning process is to make sure you put something there to facilitate getting up to the window because a lot of the time it’s not something that’s waist-high in the bedroom or basement. It’s more something that’s head high, and you need something to climb up to the window,” Ethier said.
What started as a smaller event has quickly become one that the fire fighters and community look forward to each year.
“The open house started years ago with 50 to 100 people, and it’s just kind of taken off into an event where we try to exceed and do better every year and make it bigger every year for the community,” Wenzel said.
The open house is a free come-and-go event. For more information, call the BRFA at 780-826-4755.
