Local firefighters return from G8 summit

Even though his only interaction with world leaders was watching U.S. President Barrack Obama’s helicopter fly 200 feet overhead, a local firefighter says being at the G8 was a once in a lifetime opportunity that he would do again in an instant.

From June 20 to 27, Dennis Brescacin was one of 22 local firefighters deployed to the G8 Summit in Huntsville last week. The firefighters are part of the provincial Chemical Biological Nuclear Radioactive Explosive level 2 response team deployed as a hazardous materials team should an attack happen.

Brescacin said the firefighters were prepared for anything at the summit but luckily everything went smoothly.

"When we were there we were told to consider everything as a threat because you don’t know what’s going to happen," he said. "We were on our guard. We didn’t know what could happen but we trusted the security at the event."

Brescacin said the team only responded to one call when they discovered an unknown substance, which didn’t turn out to be a threat. While last Saturday is now infamous with burning police cars and smashed windows in downtown Toronto, Brescacin said Saturday in Huntsville was pretty quiet.

Tensions rose as the team was put on stand-by to go to Toronto to assist the fire department there.

"It was pretty tense because we were told that we may have to re-deploy down to Toronto to assist them as the chaos," he said. "We didn’t have to but we were ready to."

The team wasn’t allowed to tell anyone they were going to participate in one of the world’s largest security teams even though they’ve been making preparations for a year.

"We told our families that we were going somewhere for deployment," he said. "They kind of knew it was for the G8."

Despite the secrecy, Brescacin said all of the local firefighters involved said they would do it all over again if they could.

"They would do it again," he said. "In a minute."