LOUISE LOIK
E d i t o r
There’s something about a fire truck on display that
changes adult men and women into a junior version of themselves.
At the fire station open house on Saturday kids
popped on firefighters’ helmets to look at trucks and watch a
rescue demonstration. Men and women stepped up onto
the trucks, feeling momentarily like a kid playing at being a
firefighting superhero.To entice the crowds to the
event, for weeks in advance of the day, the fire crew had
a banner hanging across the parking lot of the new fire station
announcing that an open house was imminent. The
planning paid off. Knowing that an open house at the fire
hall means playing with equipment, putting on hard hats and
climbing around on shiny red fire trucks, dozens of families,
amounting to hundreds of individuals, came out to the
event.
On the ground, there was more going on than a display
of fire trucks and equipment. A group of firefighters
demonstrated how they do a rescue in a car crash with a
crushed car. Kids were riveted watching a car get cut open
by the crew. There were also
experts on hand to explain the
Neighbourhood Emergency
Response program as well as
the Social Services Emergency
program.
The neighbourhood program
is new this year and
incorporates technology that
could allow for efficient emergency
communications around
the island and to the mainland,
in addition to hands-on emergency
response.
The social services program
is part of a provincial program
that supports the local emergency
response program that
would help out with shortterm
needs of evacuees and
response workers in a disaster
or emergency.
While the volunteer firefighters
are trained to deal with
many forms of emergencies,
they also know how to impress
children and visitors at the fire
hall. One little boy, Tyler, who
had fun climbing into the fire
trucks, summed up his experience
at Fire Station No.2. “It
was so fun,” said the six-year
old. “And the fire trucks are
really cool.”
