Working with Toronto Local 3888 and our Canadian Office, we have been following a six-alarm fire in Toronto on January 3 that demonstrated that the Fire Ground Survival (FGS) training programs clearly work and saved the lives of two of our Local 3888 members. If these crews did not have this FGS training, we would have been at funerals in Toronto this week.
Listen to the actual radio transmission. The MAYDAY starts at around 13:00 minutes. It sounds like it is out of our IAFF Fire Ground Survival scripts, except it is real. From the tapes -- and confirmed by Local 3888 President Ed Kennedy -- everything was done right, from the initial Mayday, including the downed fire fighters individually and clearly telling who they were, what happened and where they were, as well as activating PASS and using flashlights -- while they were both in very grave danger!
The Incident Command response acknowledging, controlling radio traffic (and when a chief officer used his radio to request additional resources, he was resolutely told to use talk around), clearly identifying the fire fighters involved in the Mayday and directing the Rapid Intervention Teams. At the end of the tape, the incident commander pulled all personal from the hazard area and initiated a full PAR.
This captain and fire fighter were not “lucky” -- they were well-trained, well-resourced, professional fire fighters. So, good job to our brothers and sisters in the Toronto Fire Department and Local 3888, and certainly to our Toronto Fire Ground Survival Instructor Geoff Boisseau and the Toronto training crews for conducting this training. Geoff was one of our IAFF Fire Ground Survival program developers and is one of our IAFF FGS master instructors.
This clearly demonstrates that all our Fire Ground Survival program efforts do work!!
More information on our program can be found here, and for those attending our Affiliate Leadership Training Summit in Phoenix this month; we will be demonstrating and further discussing our program and how it will be delivered. Further newspaper and tv articles can be found here.
