Members of the Medicine Hat Fire & Emergency Services conduct Hazardous Materials training outside Medicine Hat College (Photo courtesy Gates Guarin/CHATNewsToday)

By Gates Guarin

Haz mat training exercises underway

Jun 7, 2022 | 12:37 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Medicine Hat Fire and Emergency Services conducted two training exercises today to give first responders a chance to sharpen their skills around hazardous materials response.

The hazardous materials advance response team trains monthly on hazardous material incidents, usually in smaller segments. Today’s exercises provided the team with the opportunity to have full platoon involvement.

Willy Taillon is one of the team leaders of the haz mat team, and says being able to have these off-duty training exercises allows his group to bring those smaller segments together to help mitigate haz mat emergencies.

Taillon says these training exercises are important for his platoon to make sure they stay on top of their response times should they actually occur in the community.

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“Haz mat emergencies are very low-frequent, but have a high risk,” Taillon says. “So being trained, utilizing our skills, our monthly training and putting them in action, it’ll just make our community that much more safer and as a fire department, or emergency services, be able to mitigate these problems, if they come up for our community.”

The training exercises were conducted at Medicine Hat College and the Goodyear plant, with both exercises simulating incidents which could occur at each facility.

Taillon says most of the fire department’s first responders are trained as haz mat technicians, which allows them to respond to potential dangers involving Highway 1 or CP Rail, as well as the industrial sector.