Fire training

Volunteer firefighter Sean Cooke had his eyes opened to just how important safety is at his first FireCon training event.

Cooke, who started volunteering with the Oliver Paipoonge fire department near Kakabeka Falls last spring, joined more than 250 firefighters from across the region at the 2011 FireCon event. The two-day event, which started on Saturday at the Protective Emergency Services Training Centre on Hammond Avenue, focused on safety and hot to properly utilizing the equipment.

It was Cooke’s first time at FireCon and he said it was great experience.

“They focus big time on safety,” Cooke said. “It’s an eye opener about how careful you have to be when you are going into fires and how to put on the gear in less than 70 seconds. I thought it was going to be a lot easier so that was a big eye opener.”

The second day of the training had a number of high school students helped by playing victims. Some were horribly burned or were severely injured in a car accident.

Cooke said he was looking forward to doing the training with the students as well as the live fire training.

John Baker, one of the instructors, has participated at the training event for the past four years. He said the facility allows them to push the participants and give them an intense training experience that they can take back and share with their departments.

“It’s always a good experience,” Baker said. “People come from all across Northwestern Ontario. There’s a lot of volunteer fire departments, a lot of municipal departments and it is a time for everyone to come together and it is little more intensive for them and this is a great facility for that.”

Baker’s job was to help the new firefighters get more familiar with their equipment. Like Cooke, they all had to dress in less than 75 seconds. Baker said many didn’t think they would be able to do it but they practiced for a bit they were able pull it off.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity to get guys down here and take some fairly intensive courses,” he said.