Fire training session for local fire department

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Strathmore Fire Department conducted a controlled burn of a building for training purposes on March 25, with the added benefit of creating some potential hazard reduction. 

The destroyed building was the abandoned structure just east of the Western Irrigation District canal, south of the Wheatland West Fire Department station. 

“We have seen a lot of increased activity in that area with people visiting it and it is a really unsafe structure,” said Strathmore Fire Department Deputy Chief, Eric Alexander. “We thought we would use the opportunity to burn it, to rid the community of the hazard of that structure itself, while getting our firefighters an introduction into what an unlimited building looks like when it is burning from the incipient stage all the way through the growth and full burn stage.”

Alexander added local officers were exposed to the salvage operation stage following the burn. 

No fire suppression was conducted on the structure, as it had been deemed too unsafe to operate in and there was not to be any risk to detachment members during the training session. 

He described it as a quick lesson to members on fire behaviour and the burning of the building. 

“We tried to do it last fall, but we were unable to because of how dry the area was, and Wheatland County was under a fire ban,” said Alexander. “We did not want to be having a large-scale fire in that are with our neighbour municipality in a fire ban. That is why we pushed it here to this spring, and that is why we (did) it now, while there is still lots of snow on the ground.”

The training session was open to Strathmore detachment members, as well as for members from Wheatland West Fire Hall to participate. 

Members remained at the site of the burn until it had completed. Following the operation, a local excavation company was brought in to assist in moving the rubble into bins. These will be carted off to a landfill in roughly two weeks. 

Alexander explained sessions such as this are important for members to witness, as the opportunity does not occur often that a building may be completely destroyed in this fashion. 

“It is not very often that we have an acquired structure that we are able to burn, due to the restrictions that are in place for the safety of the community and our members,” he said. “It has been probably almost a decade since we have had a live fire training session. Unfortunately, we were going to use the structure to do actual suppression activities and search activities … but the structure was just too unstable to do that.”

The training session took place at roughly 8 a.m. on Saturday morning, with about a dozen members in attendance. There are currently no plans for anything to occur on the site to replace the structure or repurpose the area.