Story and photos by Mary P. Brooke      |         Last update: Sept. 28, 2009

Several fire trucks and emergency service vehicles were on site for a September 26 Sooke Fire Department training exercise which saw one of three unoccupied houses burned to the ground in a matter of hours. Training exercises (during which small portions of the house were set on fire then extinguished by firefighters-in-training) began around 9:30 am. The entire house was set on fire around 12:30 pm and then its ashes doused at 2:45 pm.

Under the direction of Sooke Fire Chief Steve Sorensen, over 20 volunteer firefighters from Sooke and Shirley took advantage of the invaluable training in this 'actual' scenario. General training at other times is done in a metal house at the Otter Point Fire Station. All of the participants who attended this event (and the previous weekend's burn) were on volunteer time.

Phenomena such as the 'thermal layer' of gases that forces firefighters and anyone escaping a fire to crawl low on the floor were seen. All firefighters wear a locational device that beeps to increasing levels of intensity as their movement decreases; this is a safety feature should they be trapped or lost within thick smoke or other dangerous fire situation. The air tanks worn by firefighters also emit a tone (similar to that of an old telephone ringing sound) that beeps increasingly louder as the supply of air diminishes.

The September 26 outdoor burn of a wood frame house with items of furniture, two chimneys, metal eavestroughs, an oil tank, a deck, window panes and nearby trees (but no drywall or complex wiring) was a scenario with ample previously untried situations for the volunteers (and some District of Sooke staff who participated to gain field exposure to Fire Department activity) to start, observe and extinguish fires.  A chair and other household items were intentionally stationed in the empty house so that trainees could observe how fires start in simple ways (e.g. a cigarette falling onto an upholstered chair), how quickly the fire progresses (and in what manner), and how effectively the fire can be extinguished with the right skill and equipment.

Trees along the property line as well as a tiny empty cottage adjacent to the target house were doused with water and fire retardant spray during the entire full burn. The breeze was light during most of the day and the skies clear; the smoke cooperatively made its way out to the ocean instead of blowing back toward the observers and the highway on West Coast Road beyond it all.

Containment of the fire was achieved with water and fire retardant spray both delivered through pressurized hoses. When it came time to douse the entire episode, a spray of water at 1,000 gallons per minute was dispensed from a monitor (hose with a remotely-managed nozzle) positioned at the top of a tall truck ladder. Other water hoses released water at 250 and 500 gallons per minute during the 2.5-hour full burn.

The District of Sooke justifies the cost to burn down these three houses over three days (Sept. 20, 26 and 27) in terms of the multi-faceted training opportunity as well as providing a service of clearing the land for future use (likely for construction of the 122-room hotel proposed by Prestige Sooke Holdings Ltd.).   The three paid firefighters in the department are not paid for nights/weekends and are not paid overtime. Some expense was incurred for two of the staff to strip the asphalt shingles off the roof of each of the three buildings in order to comply with Ministry of Environment requirements for house burns.

The value of these sorts of house burn exercises includes the incalculable cost of loss should there ever be a 'real' (emergency / unintentional) fire. Another cost factor to compare is that to send a firefighter to a live fire training centre (such as the one at the Justice Institute in Maple Ridge, BC) is $250 per person per day plus the cost of meals, hotels, ferries, travel, etc.     MM

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