Among a consultant’s 19 recommendations to Creston Town Council on Tuesday is one that will be acted upon immediately—Fire Chief Mike Moore and others are being moved out of their Fire Hall offices.
Ernie Polsom of FireWise Consulting listed a series of environmental and procedural issues identified from an inspection of the Fire Hall and presented his report to the Committee of the Whole on Tuesday. In the gallery were a number of members of Citizens for an Affordable Fire Hall, which spearheaded the campaign to defeat a borrowing referendum to construct a new fire hall last year.
The recommendation to move staff from Fire Hall offices immediately seemed to take Council members by surprise—they had not seen the FireWise report prior to the meeting.
Polsom took pains to explain that his inspection and recommendations were not contingent on a need for a new fire hall, or “to take away from the important work of the select committee.”
“Every option except the status quo remains on the table,” he said. He later added that the FireWise report provides “reasonable interim methodology to achieve an acceptable level of risk for persons required to use the Creston Fire Department station.” Cancer and other occupational health risks for firefighters exist, and are something all employers must manage, he said.
“There is a need to act immediately in relation to health and safety risks,” he said.
Polsom said that the Creston community has been “well-led about information on the Fire Department issue” and that the issues raised by the Fire Department “are verified by various experts.”
“No one signs up to accept potentially catastrophic health risks that can be prevented or managed,” he said, referring to all workers, including firefighters.
Acknowledging that the current fire hall was constructed for another purpose (grocery store) and renovated to standards that are long out of date, he said that his 19 recommendations are viable.
“The reality is something that needs to be done.”
“All the recommendations in this report are supported by a combination of industry accepted practices (and not necessarily the higher standard of “best practice”), manufacturers’ instructions, internationally accepted fire service standards and related WorkSafeBC regulations,” Polsom, a former fire chief and now manager of emergency management operations in Lloydminster AB, said in his report. “Taken in their entirety, these recommendations provide a simplified risk management approach to address identified and potential exposure and risks. While some of the recommendations are specifically intended to bridge into an updated facility many are the basis of effective hazard management process that should continue subsequent to a move into updated facilities.”
He praised the efforts of Fire Chief Mike Moore to modernize the fire department and address occupational health and safety issues.
“I have nothing to teach Chief Moore,” he said.
Among the 19 FireWise recommendations are:
• A (now in process) hygiene evaluation of the fire station, equipment and personal protective equipment by a qualified third party.
• A hazardous materials exposure risk should be included in planning for all Town of Creston operations.
• Mandatory physical exams should be required for new firefighters (to establish baselines) and at least every 24—and preferably 12—months thereafter.
• Specific decontamination, infection and exposure control standard operating guidelines should be developed, and decontamination procedures should be conducted according to National Fire Protection Association standards.
• No contaminated personal protection gear should be brought into the fire hall or be transported in passenger areas of firefighting apparatus.
• Fire suppression procedures should be developed to focus on cooling a fire prior to firefighter entry into a premises, which has been shown to mitigate the hazards of exposure.
• Consideration should be given to making the current fire hall an “operations only” facility, including moving administrative personnel to another facility and holding group training and meeting functions at other locations. Temporary shower and hygiene facilities, including ones for females, should be developed.
• Steps should be taken to reduce vehicle exhaust inside the fire hall.
• Professional cleaning services should be considered for all fire hall areas except the vehicle bays.
• Spare firefighter gear needs to be in place to replace contaminated gear while it is being cleaned.
• Firefighters should be required to maintain a set of clothing, including undergarments, to change into prior to leaving the station after a fire. Mandatory decontamination procedures should be in place for any firefighter who MAY have been exposed to the products of combustion or biological hazards.
Following Polsom’s presentation, several questions were asked from the gallery. Keith Goforth, who campaigned on the No side of the referendum, asked if the recommended standards were affordable for a small community and whether standards were too high for a fire department with a small number of fire callouts.
Polsom said that the standards are the same for a fire protection service that responds to one fire or 100 fires.
Couns. Karen Unruh expressed her frustration that the Town of Creston now has to focus on taking—and paying for—stopgap measures that would have been addressed by construction of a new fire hall.
Town Manager Lou Varela told Council that preparations are already underway to move personnel from the Fire Hall to the upper floor of Town Hall.
“Logistically, it’s going to be tight,” she said. “This is not about comfort, but about getting it done.”
WorkSafeBC, which is also looking into occupational health and safety concerns expressed by local firefighters, has requested copies of all reports and studies, including the one presented on Tuesday.