By Charles Lefebvre

Firefighters prepared for cold temperatures

Feb 13, 2019 | 2:57 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — Medicine Hat Fire Services were kept busy on Tuesday, being called to several minor house fires during the day.

With the cold weather the region has been receiving, firefighters say it’s important to ensure their equipment remains in top shape.

“If we don’t have our tools, and they’re not working properly, we can’t do our job,” says Curtis Sjodin, fire prevention officer with Medicine Hat Fire Service. “We have to maintain our equipment to the best of our ability, and there’s a few things we do in winter to maintain them.”

During the winter, this includes firefighters constantly ensuring water is moving through the hoses while they’re fighting fires to ensure freezing doesn’t occur.

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It also involves draining hoses and pumps following each call.

“After the fire, it’s difficult with cleanup, because some of the tools we use can’t go right back on the truck,” said Sjodin. “We have to come and put on different hoses, different tools, because they freeze up.”

Sjodin says so far this winter, firefighters have not had any issues with frozen equipment.

Sjodin adds one of the biggest issues in the winter while fighting fires doesn’t involve their own equipment.

Whenever they respond to a fire, they have to shut down the utilities in a home in order to extinguish it, leading to the risk of pipes freezing and further damage to the home.

“In the summer, it doesn’t matter if we leave the heat off, because we don’t have that problem, but when it’s cold out now, we want to try and either start the furnace back up as fast as we can or we need to get an external heating source in there just to prevent further damage,” he said.