Fire prevention and department news for Hornby Island Fire Rescue
With a sad heart we have had to cancel this year’s Cadet Camp. We only had 10 registrants this year and we need 12 to make it happen.
The spring break for this school district didn’t line up with the break for the South Island and Lower Mainland districts. This means that the 6 or 8 kids that have summer homes here weren’t able to attend. Hopefully next year the dates will line up better for us.
This year’s Cadet Camp dates have been set and the planning is underway. Kids between the ages of 10 and 14 are welcome to register for the 2 day event which happens on April 4th and 5th.
Get more info or register on our website. You can also register by calling the firehall at 250.335.2611 and leaving a message.
This year’s Cadet Camp was a great success with sunny, warm weather and fun, interested participants.
On Wednesday morning the cadets cut apart a car with our hydraulic tools, learned how to escape a burning building, navigated a maze filled with theatrical smoke, and experimented with fire behaviour. After a great lunch of homemade pasta with cheese sauce and salad we took the trucks to the school parking lot. There they learned how to use a hose line and sprayed a lot of water and foam.
Thursday morning was spent learning first aid skills by patching each other up according to a “wheel of fortune of injuries”, and learning the ins and outs of the 911 system. We were able to do an actual 911 call to fire dispatch to watch the system work from calling 911 to when our pagers go off. Lunch was chili with home baked bread followed by ice cream sundaes. The afternoon was spent extinguishing both oil fires and wood fires using a variety of extinguishers.
To cap it all off, the cadets returned to the firehall with their parents later in the evening for a firefighter challenge. It was a great opportunity to show off their newly learned skills. They went through a course involving finding their way out of a smoky maze, rescuing a baby along the way. They then dragged a charged hoseline 50′ and had to knock over a traffic cone with the hosestream. They completed the circuit by dragging a dummy 50′ back to the starting point.
Once everyone had completed the course we all retired upstairs for desserts, certificates, and a few special awards. Big thanks to all the kids who participated. You make it all worth it.
Extra thanks to all the firefighters who took time off of work, or who simply gave p a day or two of their lives to make this successful. Extra special thanks to Rachelle, Theresa, and Jules who aren’t even on the department, but who worked tirelessly to make such fabulous food for all of us.
See you all next year!
There is room for a few more participants. Registration begins at 10AM. The fun starts at 10:30 and rolls right on through until Thursday evening. See you there.
On Sunday, March 6 at 1800 we received a general page for a fire on Little Trib beach. We arrived to find a soggy and barely smoldering fire all but extinguished. Further investigation revealed that the bonfire had extended to the dead grasses at the head of the beach, but that had also been extinguished.
As it turns out, a large fire had been left unattended at the head of the beach and in front of a local residence. Soledad and Breanna, two of our recent Cadet Camp graduates came across the fire on their way home and immediately realized the hazard. While one of them found a bucket the other called an adult and initiated a fire department response. Using skills that they learned in Cadet Camp, they safely and successfully knocked down the 1.5 -2 meter flames before the fire could extend to the brush between the beach and the houses.
HIFR would like to thank Breanna and Soledad for their sharp thinking and quick action in helping us deal with a potentially dangerous situation.