Airdrie City Councillor Tina Petrow and Deputy Mayor Kelly Hegg spent a day experiencing life as a firefighter.

They dressed up in full turnout gear and went along with a few local firefighters as they responded to mock calls.

Fire Ops 101 was put on by Airdrie and Calgary firefighters associations.

“It’s a way for elected officials to go and kind of see the challenges that our firefighters face on a daily basis,” Petrow explained.

They dealt with several different scenarios that would be typical for fire crews, like getting called out to the scene of a collision.

“My group attended a motor vehicle collision and had to extract a patient from a vehicle and cut the car open,” said Petrow. “You have to look at the hazards that they do deal with when they go to those calls. They have to have someone doing traffic management and stabilizing the car, just things you wouldn’t normally think about.”

With the rise in opioid-related overdoses in the last few years, firefighters, as first responders who can provide some medical aid, are often the first on the scene. However, Petrow says it’s not typically a task most people associate with firefighters.

“You think yeah we go, we help the person, we get out of there, but when you go into that house how many people are in there? Are there weapons in there? Are there needles everywhere? What is the situation you’re walking into in there?” Petrow said. “Those are situations they’re facing every day.”

The City Councillors also had to enter a smoke room and find a person that needed to be rescued and pull them to safety. They were also put face to face with a fire to feel what it’s really like to fight a fire.

“The final thing that we did, we actually went into a fire room where there was an active fire burning,” Petrow explained. “They showed me a reading about 660 degrees about five feet in front of us and you could feel it burning through your suit.”

Petrow says she’s always had great respect for firefighters and the job they do and Fire Ops 101 course has made her appreciate the efforts and sacrifice that much more.

 

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