Keremeos Volunteer Fire Department responded to the following incidents in March 2012
1 – Chimney fire
1 – Garbage can fire
3 – Motor vehicle incidents
1 – Brush fire
The Keremeos fire department would like to thank Evin Hartfield, owner of Cathedral Ridge construction for donating material and company time for the preparation of some recent training and also Duncan Baynes for the use of the property.
A shockingly high number of homes in B.C. don’t carry working smoke alarms, resulting in a high number of accidental deaths, according to a new study by the University of Fraser Valley and Surrey Fire Services.
As a result, the provincial government and the Fire Chiefs’ Association of B.C. are launching a new campaign to ensure every home in the province has a working alarm.
On Thursday the province and Surrey released data showing that almost 70 per cent of houses that caught fire in B.C. between 2006-2011 did not have a functioning smoke alarm. The research suggests that one in three fire deaths over that period might have been avoided if there had been a working smoke detector.
The data also shows that children, elderly people, those in First Nations communities and rural areas are greatest at risk of dying in a house fire.
“This is a very poor report card on the state of functioning smoke alarms in our province and country,” said Len Garis, the President of the Fire Chiefs’ Association of BC and also Surrey’s fire chief. “As a fire service, we now have the opportunity to work together and make a real difference on this important safety issue. We’ve tackled this issue before, but this time we’ll be looking for permanent, sustainable solutions.”
BC Attorney-General Shirley Bond said the report’s findings show the province needs to convince residents its in their personal interest to install a working smoke detector in their home.
“At the end of the day, we want every home to have a working smoke alarm. It’s a goal we should have for all Canadian homes, and we plan to lead by example in our province.”
The study, which was completed earlier this year, analyzed almost 50,000 fires in Alberta, B.C. and Ontario that took place between 2006 and 2011. There were 663 fatalities.
In B.C. alone, 135 of the 170 fire-related deaths over the same five years took place in homes that didn’t have a working smoke alarm. Of those, 54 victims were either asleep at the time of the fire or impaired by alcohol or drugs. The condition of the casualty was unknown in 62 other cases. Smoke inhalation accounted as the cause of nearly half of all fire deaths.
“The findings demonstrated that the death rate per 1,000 fires in the absence of a present, working smoke alarm was 74 per cent greater than when a functioning smoke alarm was present,” the report concluded.
The researchers also looked at 11,000 B.C. fires and discovered that those which had a working smoke alarm suffered on average 19 per cent less damage. The fires were also smaller in nature, more often confined to the object, area or room of origin. “Without present, functioning smoke alarms, fires extends further and does more damage,” according to the report.
In 2010 B.C. began requiring smoke alarms in all new residential construction. But there remains a significant number of homes that are either not equipped with smoke alarms, or have non-functioning detectors.
Bond and Garis said as part of the new campaign the Office of the Fire Commissioner and the Fire Chiefs’ Association will lead a committee to focus on “the three E’s of injury prevention — education, environment and enforcement.”
There will also be a school-based curriculum for fire prevention, and a call for federal politicians to consider instituting design changes to prevent smoke alarms from being disabled.
The report points out that 17.3 per cent of buildings that caught fire had smoke alarms that didn’t work. Of that, more than one in five had either dead batteries, the batteries were removed, or the wiring was disconnected or turned off. The rest either were in unsuitable locations or failed for other undetermined reasons.
