Medicine Hat firefighters spray water into receptacle as part of a training exercise on Oct. 5, 2022. (Photo Courtesy Ross Lavigne)

By Chris Brown

Emergency training exercise ‘valuable’ experience for city firefighters

Oct 5, 2022 | 3:56 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Firefighters never want to respond to a large emergency like a semi-truck crashing into an oil tanker in the heart of the city. But it could happen, so they need to know exactly what to do in that instance.

Once every few years, the City of Medicine Hat hosts a full-scale emergency exercise. It’s valuable training, says Medicine Hat Fire and Emergency Services’ chief training officer.

“It’s one of those things we need to practice. We train lots, our members do,” says Garnet Decker. “Larger scales. we don’t get the opportunities as much so it’s very valuable for us to have this experience to get our guys that frontline work and working together on a large-scale incident.”

Decker says it’s difficult to fully simulate major incidents here but there are some aspects of response they’re able to work on, processes like how to communicate, work together, and call in the right people and the right equipment.”

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There are some on-the-ground aspects of training they can practice, such as responding from the stations, deploying the hose line and putting on the proper gear.

“We do it as realistic as possible,” Decker says.

In today’s training scenario, a semi-truck collided with a crude oil tanker in the Canadian Pacific Rail yard, causing a fire, explosion and evacuation of the area. Methanex, South Eastern Alberta Search and Rescue, the Medicine Hat Remand Centre, Alberta Health Services and other partners were also involved in the exercise.