It was a simulation that seems very real.
The North Bay Fire Department was running HAZMAT training today in North Bay, training their own and members from Thunder Bay and Peterborough Fire Departments.
This simulation was a chlorine leak at a wastewater plant with one victim down.
The training took place today at Odyssee.
“So what we are doing is the teams are setting up to do an entry to remove the victim and then cap the chlorine leak,” Jason Whiteley, North Bay Fire Chief, told CKAT.
The North Bay Fire Department has been selected to be part of the provincial Hazardous Materials Incident Response Network.
See:Specialized disaster search and rescue team upgrade in North Bay 'a real coup'
Whiteley says this selection means that personnel from North Bay Fire can and will be deployed anywhere in the province to manage incidents involving Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, or Explosive materials.
“All of our personnel have been trained to an operations level while 18 of our firefighters have received advanced training to a technician level,” he said.
Whiteley believes this exercise has proven to be very realistic.
“We did have a chlorine leak last year at the wastewater treatment plant, fortunately, there were no victims involved in that one so our crews just had to go in and isolate where the leak was and this is extremely realistic,” he said.
“This is how we would handle any Hazmat call.”
