Fired up

Volunteer firefighter recruit Samantha Styles says she gets a rush every time she goes into a burning building in order to save someone’s life.

The 30-year-old correctional officer in Conmee, Ont. wanted to do more to help her community so she joined her volunteer firefighter department. She and 23 other recruits arrived in Thunder Bay for four days of training at the Protective and Emergency Services Training Centre.

The recruits started with a classroom course on Thursday, managed some outdoor fires on Friday and on Saturday managed the fire tower. On the final day of the training, Styles and her platoon headed into the tower for some search and rescue training. With black smoke pouring out of the open windows, Styles said it was an intense and hot situation.

"It is a rush to actually to go into a burning fire and save and preserve and help out," Styles said. "I think it’s great to help out and save lives. This training is exhausting but it’s great. It’s very informative, long, but I wouldn’t have it any other way."

She said it was wonderful to apply what she had learned in class to real world situations.
Incident Safety Officer Aime Spencer said the recruits were from municipalities around the Thunder Bay region and came as far as Atikokan. The instructors follow the Ontario curriculum and teach the students the basics of firefighting and to use their equipment properly, he said.

The centre provides an opportunity for the recruits to apply what they learned in the classroom in situations they may have to deal with in real life, he said.

"The most important part of this is that this is a control situation," Spencer said. "We follow specialized guidelines for safety, which allows (the recruits) to get into situations where it is hazardous but the safety is still at a high level."

He said the biggest challenge for the students was the live fire simulation. There’s little to no visibility, the temperature is incredibly hot, have to crawl on their hands and knees and then extract two dummies from the building, he said.

He added in another month the recruits will receive another weekend training regiment that will building on what they have learned from the previous course.