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Fire Services gets wildfire fighting equipment for summer

Chief hopes to engage residents in dialogue about fire prevention Whistler Fire Rescue Services will have another tool this summer to help them in the fight against wildfires.

Chief hopes to engage residents in dialogue about fire prevention

Whistler Fire Rescue Services will have another tool this summer to help them in the fight against wildfires.

The $300,000 Compressed Air Foam System fire apparatus should be added to the Whistler fleet by June, in time for wildfire season.

"The easiest way to describe it is it produces soap bubbles," explained Fire Chief Bruce Hall.

"It puts together what’s called a Class A firefighting foam and water and mixes it. By doing that we can actually paint buildings or paint trees with the foam and that will allow us to provide a fire break.

"Needless to say, if the fire is immense it’s not going to last very long but it will allow us some breathing time."

The system can also be used to actually fight fires.

"It’s designed for firefighting in general," said Hall.

He explained that the apparatus wouldn’t be the primary truck to respond to a house fire but it could be used to coat the trees around the house with foam to stop the fire from spreading.

On Monday morning council approved $60,000 for the cab and chassis portion of the system.

Council members had delayed making a decision on the fire apparatus at the last council meeting because they wanted staff to look into giving the money to a local auto company rather than a company in the Lower Mainland, which actually had the lowest bid.

Metro Motors bid $59,936 and Sea to Sky Ford bid $60,518 for the cab and chassis.

Council was inclined to give the bid to the local company because the difference in the bids was roughly $600.

"It would certainly be my preference to shop locally," said Councillor Gordon McKeever.

Ultimately the bid went to Metro Motors because legally if the company meets the requirements of the tender, it has to go to the lowest bidder.

Hall said the tender for the second section of the truck has just been sent out to fire apparatus manufacturers.

This piece of equipment has been on the books in the municipality’s Five Year Capital Plan and is not a result of the devastating wildfires that roared through B.C. last summer said Hall.

He said there haven’t been many changes in Whistler since last summer when more than 2,500 wildfires forced the evacuation of 45,000 residents, mainly in the Interior.

"A lot of what we’re doing we actually started two years ago," said Hall.

Whistler Fire Rescue Services has been following the recommendations in a document called A Wildland Fire Strategy.

Last year, before the wildfires began, the Fire Rescue Service went door to door in Emerald with brochures on the Be Aware, Be Prepared program.

It described how homeowners could assess their homes for wildfire hazards.

Hall said the program wasn’t as successful as they’d hoped it would be, with only two or three phone calls coming back to the Fire Services.

"Our objective was to see some changes or maybe to encourage dialogue with the public and have them ask us questions," he said.

"And to be quite honest, neither one really did occur."

This year the department will be going door to door in Alpine, which like Emerald is one of the areas in Whistler that is most at risk for wildfires.

Hall is hoping for a better response this year.

"Maybe as a result of the wildfires last year, maybe we have a new impetus that people will take notice," he said.

"I think there’s an obligation from us to try and get the word out, which we’ll be doing this year. I think people in the community are perhaps a but more aware of the potential of wildfire after last year."

Early indications are that summer 2004 will be another hot and dry season, very similar to last year in terms of weather patterns, said Hall.

With spring just around the corner homeowners should be aware of fire hazards in their yard.

Fire fuels like brush and debris should be removed from the ground and trees should be trimmed from the ground up to prevent "laddering" where fires climb up the trees. In addition any trees that are overhanging homes should also be pared back.

Homeowners can take their debris to the dump or there will be two weekends in April for debris burning.

Hall said the fire department is also researching changes to building bylaws, which will stipulate no shake roofs and screens on chimneys.

This work is being done through the FireSmart program, which the B.C. Forest Service adopted from Alberta.

Under this program existing shake roofs would not need to be replaced but any new roofs and renovations would not be allowed to have shake roofs.

The difficulty said Hall is that some places actually require shake roofs as part of the building design.

"There are actually some areas in Whistler that are under covenant that require shakes so we’re going to have to discover where those areas are and look at what we can do with those areas as well," he said.

"I don’t want to deal with the issue on a piecemeal basis. I want to deal with it on... the whole resort’s perspective."