House slated for demolition becomes training ground for Didsbury Fire Department

It may seem painfully obvious that firefighters put out house fires, but in early July, the Didsbury Fire Department not only put out a house fire, but they in fact started one. 

Deputy Fire Chief of the Didsbury Fire Department, Kyle Leeson, explained that while the circumstances are quite rare, there are houses within the community that become the training grounds for firefighters. 

"Olds Fire Department had been training on a house in town for quite some time and this house was supposed to be torn down by the end of the month and Olds approached us and said, 'we just don't have the time to do it. Can you help us out?' We said we would love to come out and take care of it for you." 

And at the beginning of July, that's exactly what the fire department did. 

"The homeowner there, he was bringing the modular home the following week after. So, to have this house here, it's cheaper to burn it down and take away the remains versus someone coming in and trying to tear it down and knowing that the fire departments love to train on buildings like this, it was cheaper for us to burn it." 

Deputy Chief Neeson said that while firefighters have instructional time inside classrooms, realistic training scenarios offer a more dynamic environment, that mirrors scenes they may actually be called to. 

"The Olds Fire Department has [these] heat cans designed for a house that you can practice ventilation and practice dragging hoses and rescuing dummies and trying to pull them out safely," he said. "But nothing compares to the real thing. So [when] we have a house like this, that we can safely go through the motions of cutting holes in roofs or, or cutting out doors or dragging the hose through it; the realism really sets it apart from just the average training day." 

Perhaps the only thing that spoiled the 'realism' portion of the exercise was when the fire department received calls about the very fire that had been set. 

"We contacted our local dispatching service to let them know that we were doing this and we still had a couple of phone calls from the neighbours saying, 'hey, there's a house on fire over!' So, it threw the realism out the door for a couple of minutes there, but [then we] got back on track." 

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