City officials get first-hand experience with firefighting

By Lethbridge Herald on September 12, 2022.

Herald photo by Al Beeber Councillor John Middleton-Hope talks to a firefighter after a simulated rescue on Monday at Fire Station No. 4. Several councillors and members of administration acted as firefighters for the day learning first-hand what city fire and EMS crews experience on a daily basis.

Al Beeber – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – abeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

Members of city council and City administration got a hands-on look Monday at the challenges faced by Lethbridge fire and rescue crews on their daily duties.

Lethbridge Firefighters IAAFF Local 237 along with Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services gave several civic officials an opportunity to experience fire rescue, extrication and life-saving work done here by short-handed crews.

Brent Nunweiler of IAFF Local 237 said members wanted to show how well they do their job with limited staffing.

Nunweiler said after the session at Fire Station No. 4 that the standard is four crew per apparatus but LFES operates with three personnel.

“We were lucky enough to get a few councillors, the city manager and some city administration out here today to see what we do every day. When the community calls 911, it’s the worst day of their lives and we often respond to the worst day of someone’s lives multiple times a day. So we were putting the council and city admin through three of those scenarios today,” he said.

They included a simulated residential structure fire, a motor vehicle collision and a medical emergency.

“We were able to show them how with our limited staffing levels how well we do with our integrated service. We run firefighters and paramedics on both the ambulance and the fire side. And we run three-personnel fire apparatus so we were able to show council and admin how difficult it is when we arrive on scene ‘with fewer members than the industry standard, added Nunweiler.

“It makes it very difficult. Typically we could use an ambulance member as a firefighter but with dispatch leaving and moving to Calgary, centralizing dispatch has made ambulance unavailable to assist us at fire scenes,” he said.

“As decision makers, they’re (council) elected to decide where the funds go in the city and we want to give them an inside perspective of what that looks like and what we do on a daily basis to make their jobs easier when they have to make those difficult decisions,” added Nunweiler.

“We’re just asking for the tools to do our jobs, tools being staffing in this case.”

Councillor John Middleton-Hope said “it’s a great experience for members of city council and administration to experience what it’s like to go on fire calls.”

The councillor added “from a lay person’s perspective, it’s interesting to see all the equipment that has to be worn” saying firefighters are probably losing several pounds on each call carrying so much weight which he estimated to be about 60 to 80 pounds.

For him, the biggest challenge was he couldn’t hear very well with lots of noise and activity going on during the fire rescue element. A wrangler helped guide the guests during the fire rescue part. He heard an alarm going off which his wrangler said was because his oxygen tank was empty and he had to leave.

“Clearly, visual was a real challenge and auditory was a real challenge. And you can understand why it’s so important for the firefighters to have a minimum number of staff members when you’re going into one of these events,” he said.

“If you don’t, somebody is going to get hurt. And we don’t want that,” added Middleton-Hope.

When he was a police officer, the councillor said he went into fires without equipment and on one occasion extricated a person from a garage.

“You end up spitting up black out of your lungs for several days after. The equipment is so critical because sometimes they’re in there for a long period of time,” said the councillor.

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