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ACROSS CANADA: Regional news briefs
Study shows link between long-term exposure to wildfire related air pollutants and mortality
Researchers have found a correlation between long-term exposure to wildfire related air pollutants and mortality.
A recent study published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials stated that long-term exposure to wildfire related fine particulate matter increased the risks of all-cause, non-accidental, and abnormal growth mortality, such as carcinoma.
Fine particulate matter are tiny particles in the air that reduce visibility and cause the air to appear hazy when levels are elevated.
The data comes from the UK Biobank cohort, and evidence
THE FIRE HALL BULLETIN
Promotions & appointments
The town of Olds, Alta., welcomed STEPHANIE BIBAULT as its new deputy fire chief. She arrived in Olds after a long career in the Canadian Armed Forces. She began her fire career in Comox, B.C. after
completing training at the Canadian Forces Fire Academy and Algonquin College. Bibault has been a firefighter, fire instructor, and an emergency management leader. She went on several domestic and international deployments with the army, navy, and air force, and holds a Master of Arts degree in Disaster and Emergency Management.
suggested that exposure to those air pollutants had long-term adverse impacts on neoplasm mortality.
There were no significant changes dependent on the person’s age, sex, ethnicity, education, current employment status, smoking status, alcohol drinking status, income, body mass index, and socioeconomic factors on long-term wildfire related air pollutants for exposure and all-cause mortality.
Those findings are consistent with a previous study that found long-term exposure to wildfire related fine particulate matter was associated with cancer mortality, but the estimate from the previous study is higher than the one in the current study.
Researchers say the difference between the two studies could be due to the diverse study area, population, design, and method.
Additionally, patients with weakened immune systems could be more vulnerable to wildfire-related fine particulate matter, which could lead to significant mortality.
Inhalation of fine particulate matter has been suggested to induce inflammation and oxidative stress in the body by increasing the proinflammatory factors. It also could lead to cellular dysfunction.
Further, the study found that wildfire-related fine particulate matter was more toxic than ambient fine particulate matter because of the “more complex chemical composition and synergy with other environmental variables.”
The study states that reducing the risk of premature mortality from fine particulate matter exposure would require the adoption of targeted health protection strategies.
The study noted that current population-based evidence is limited, which is why more research on the topic is needed.
Fire Chief EARL GRIGG has joined Kirkland Lake Fire Services as the town’s fire chief and director of emergency services. He came from the Town of Marathon, Ont. and he has more than 26 years of municipal fire service experience, especially in the development and delivery of fire and medical rescue, hazardous material programs and emergency management field services.
CHAD EAKINS has been appointed as the new fire chief and director of emergency services in Medicine Hat, Alta. He joined the department in 2007and has 20 years of experience in emergency services. Eakins was promoted to assistant deputy chief in 2019, followed by deputy chief in 2021. He stepped in as acting chief February.
A Toronto skyline hazy with wildfire smoke.
PHOTO BY © SCOTT HEANEY/ ADOBE
Something’s changed: summer 2023 is screaming climate change, scientists say
Earlier this summer, two Canadians walked into a party in rural Germany.
“Canadians?” joked the host. “I thought you’d smell more like smoke.”
It’s been that kind of season. Floods, drought, warm waters lapping three coasts – but mostly wildfire smoke from sea to sea and overseas. Yes, this is climate change, scientists say, and expect more weather weirdness to come.
“It’s been a wild ride,” said Danny Blair, co-director of the Prairie Climate Centre at the University of Winnipeg. “It’s been a season and a year of extremes.”
Drought is one example. Canada’s a big place and it’s always dry somewhere, but not like this.
Agriculture Canada’s June 30 drought map shows most of the country was abnormally dry. Large stretches of the Prairies were under at least a moderate drought, pushing to extreme in southern Alberta.
In British Columbia, once the “wet coast,” 28 out of 34 river basins were at the province’s top two drought levels. Ranchers were selling cattle that they couldn’t grow enough hay to feed, and low streamflows were threatening salmon runs.
And it’s been hot. Although the east was generally normal, the west wasn’t.
From May through July, Kelowna, B.C., experienced 36 days of weather more than 30 C. The normal count is 16 C. Norman Wells, not far from the Arctic Circle in the Northwest Territories, set a new record of 38 C on July 8.
Environment Canada senior climatologist Dave Phillips toted up the number of warm temperature records set this summer versus the number of cold records.
“If the climate was balanced, you’d have as many cold records as warm records,” he said.
Nope. There were 372 new hottemperature marks and 55 cold ones.
Nor is the heat restricted to the land. Phillips said waters off all three Canadian coasts have never been warmer.
Hudson Bay is up to 3 C warmer. The Pacific coast is between 2 C and 4 C warmer. Both the Atlantic and Arctic coasts are up 5 C from average.
Then there were the floods – “so many floods,” said Phillips.
On July 21, Halifax got three months worth of rain in 24 hours. At least three people died in the floods, up to 600 had to evacuate their homes, and power cuts affected 80,000. Roads washed away and at least seven bridges were left needing major repair or replacement.
There were also fires that spread smoke across the continent and into Europe, where “Canadian wildfires” made headlines from the New York Times to Germany’s nightly news.
With more than 13 million blackened hectares, it has been the worst wildfire season in North American history. All 13 provinces and territories have been affected, often at the same time. Tens of thousands of people were forced from
their homes, hundreds of houses were destroyed and four firefighters have been killed.
Over the years, cities such as Calgary and Edmonton have grown used to “smoke days.” This year, that unhappy club grew to include Ottawa (171 smoke hours), Montreal (100 smoke hours) and Toronto, which, on June 30, had the second-worst air quality in the world.
Wikipedia already has an entry for “2023 Canadian Wildfires.” The fire season is barely half over.
It’s not just a year of particularly wild natural variability, Blair said.
“Canada experiences a remarkable amount of variability from year to year,” he said. “It’s not unusual for us to have dry weather or hot weather.
“But the frequency of it and the severity of it and the coinciding of it with enormous extremes of weather in the U.S. and across the world is suggesting to a lot of people that something’s changed.”
World Weather Attribution, a group in the United Kingdom that estimates the contribution of climate change to individual weather events, has already said the U.S. and European heat waves this summer would have been “virtually impossible” without it. Its analysis of Canada’s wildfires is expected later this fall.
“I have no doubt the conclusion is going to be that these events are way outside the line of natural variability,” Blair said.
— Bob Weber, The Canadian Press, Aug. 5
SCOTT GRANAHAN has been appointed as the new fire chief and director of emergency services in the Town of Bracebridge, Ont. He has more than 17 years of experience in the fire service. Granahan began his career with the Brock Township Fire Department in 2006 and then moved around to the Town of Georgina, Meaford, Mississippi Mills and Rideau Lakes.
Retirements
Sarnia, Ont., Fire
Chief BRYAN VAN
GAVER is set to retire next year after being in the fire service for more than 36 years. He began his career as a firefighter in 1987 and took on the deputy chief role in 2013. Van Gaver has served as the city’s fire chief since 2020.
Last Alarm
Gravenhurst, Ont., Fire Chief (Ret.)
LORNE MCNEICE passed away in July. Chief McNeice served on the Gravenhurst Fire Department for 40 years, and for 27 of those years, he was the fire chief. He also worked at the Ontario Fire College for
many years. McNeice was awarded the Queen’s Jubilee medal in June 2012 and was committed to his family and the fire service.
For more, visit firefightingincanada.com.
accomplished everything that I wanted to do in that set of goals, and it was time for some new goals and some new things where I didn’t have to be helping solve other people’s emergencies every day.”
Ross Tustin spent 35 years in Fire, serving smaller communities across Ontario including Barrie, Bradford, and Essa Township as well the fire marshal’s office. She was also the first woman in Ontario to become a fire chief, and the first female president of the Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs.
“The only reason I really went into [the fire service] was because people told me no,” she said. “I wanted to serve and that’s why I just kept pushing. Somebody made the mistake of telling me ‘No.’”
When she first decided to leave the fire service, Ross Tustin had many thoughts running through her mind, the first few being, what was her sense of purpose? What would she do during retirement that would still give her the “adrenaline high” that being a fire chief gave her?
“No human being alive ever wants to exist without a sense of purpose. When you’re in the fire service, your sense of purpose is very clear. It’s direct, it’s in front of your face all the time. You can fulfill that need for a sense of purpose all the time by helping people,” she said. “I’m wondering what the heck was going to be my sense of purpose because it sure wasn’t going to be cleaning the house and keeping the lawn cut. No matter how valuable those things might be, it wasn’t going to cut it.”
Ross Tustin also worried about what kind of role model she would be to other women in the fire service if she left her position.
“As a woman who fought all those hurdles to get to the top of the pile, I wondered, ‘Was I leaving too soon?’ ‘Had I done enough to help other women behind me?’” she said. “It almost felt like I was giving up on that piece; guilty of quitting the sisterhood, so to speak.”
Despite her initial uncertainty, Ross Tustin decided to pursue writing and painting full time. She currently writes a blog about retirement called, I’m Thinking of Retiring. She also paints whenever she can and does copywriting for several clients. She does not consider herself as retired, but rather, self-tenured.
“For decades, my life had been tactical and practical. And yet, I’m way more artsy-fartsy than I am tactical and practical. But you kind of put the creative side aside, and so I knew it was time to do something artsy-fartsy because I was done with tactical and practical,” she said.
Over on Canada’s east coast, Deputy
Fire Chief (Ret.) Gilbert MacIntyre retired from the Sydney Fire Department on Cape Breton Island in February. His path to retirement was somewhat unexpected. He was initially looking into some pension plan information for someone else, and he inadvertently found out what his numbers were.
It was then that MacIntyre understood why he had seen the familiar blank stare on the faces of his former colleagues after having come back from getting their numbers at city hall.
“Once they go to get their numbers, they’re checked out, their eyes gloss over. They’re no longer with us. They go into another world. They might spend another couple of years with us, but they’re gone,” he said. “When I saw the numbers on the computer that day, I saw the exit sign.”
MacIntyre did not mind going to work, but after 34 years of working in the fire service, he began to think about the possibility of retirement. He spoke to his wife and when they saw it was something he could pursue, he began the process while training and preparing the man who would eventually replace him as deputy fire chief.
“It just hits you that it’s time to go. I didn’t think it was going to hit me. Maybe it was seeing the numbers or maybe it was just my time, but it clicked over,” he said.
As someone who lives a very active lifestyle, MacIntyre was happy to retire and enjoy the extra time spent with his family and the ability to focus on new and existing hobbies, such as playing the guitar, practicing karate and Reiki, teaching yoga and going to the gym. There was no new job waiting for him on his last day at the fire hall, and he was okay with that.
“People said to me when I was getting ready to retire, ‘You’re going to have to find something else to do.’ No, I’m not. I’m retiring. I’m not changing jobs,” he said. “Firefighters are very good at knowing what to do with enough downtime.”
No human being alive ever wants to exist without a sense of purpose.
When you’re in the fire service, your sense of purpose is very clear. It’s direct, it’s in front of your face all the time. – Cynthia Ross Tustin
When Fire Chief (Ret.) Shawn McKerry was leaving his role at the Fort Saskatchewan Fire Department in Alberta, he was happy to be done. He felt he had accomplished more than he had ever expected to do as a fire chief and welcomed the idea of passing the baton to the next person willing to take on the role and the responsibilities that come with it.
“I think the emergency service world can [be hard] on people and you have to know when maybe it is time to hang up the uniform,” he said. “Although I’m still fairly young, and still have lots of railroad in front of me, now I can put my efforts into the next thing.”
While McKerry has yet to reach the standard age of retirement, he hung up his uniform to pursue other meaningful work that was fire fighting adjacent. In his second career, McKerry moved into the role of interim chief administrative officer in Brazeau County, Alta., where he made many organizational commitments to help support that community’s fire department.
He then moved into an educational role at Lakeland College’s
Emergency Training Centre (ETC). As the dean, McKerry now works with incoming fire fighting students to pass on his knowledge of the fire service to the next generation of firefighters.
“Don’t be afraid to step out [of the fire service] because I think a lot of the leadership skills that we get to develop either intentionally or unintentionally or accidentally, from our roles and the experiences we’ve got, can make us greater leaders in higher up roles,” he said.
When McKerry left Brazeau County to become the dean at Lakeland’s ETC, he initially was worried about leaving because he felt like he was giving up his connection to a municipality and losing the ability to impact local service. However, he was able to shift his mindset to a more positive outlook on his new role.
“My brain kicked in and said, ‘Wait, I can actually have an impact and influence on the national level of emergency services – fire specifically – but also emergency management and hopefully other avenues,’” he said. “I can impact this at a national level, which is then going to have an impact on the chiefs that are providing [emergency services] to their local municipalities. My local community has now changed to the national community. I can get
on board with this.”
While Ross Tustin offered advice for fire chiefs thinking about retirement or leaving the fire service for another role, she said it is important to get all the paperwork done on presumptive cancers. Even if a fire chief retires without a cancer diagnosis, they may be diagnosed with the disease in the future, and it may or may not be limited to something presumptive.
“Make sure you have all the paperwork you need for either you or your family in case you pass away because you need the assistance of your fire department for the data and the records,” she said, adding the paperwork should be added to a last will and testament.
Ross Tustin also suggested thinking outside the box when it comes to finding other activities or careers to do after leaving the fire service since fire chiefs have many transferrable skills to offer.
“You can’t have just one hobby. You need to cultivate multiple interests. And some you need to cultivate with your spouse, because you might be back to doing things with that person for the first time in decades. So, cultivate multiple interests and find things that you can do by yourself and find things to do
together because that’s just as important.”
Similarly, Langille recommends focusing on your values and figuring out what feeds your soul and brings you joy. Retiring with a sense of who you are and what your purpose is when you’re not wearing the uniform can make the daunting thought of retirement less frightening.
“Our identity should not be linked and tied so inextricably to what we do or our title,” she said, echoing MacIntyre’s sentiments that the fire service uniform is the same as any other uniform.
“It’s a coat you put on to show what you’re doing at that time,” he said. “Look at what else you have in your life.”
MacIntyre said Team Red has been a sounding board for him throughout his retirement, and they have been instrumental in helping him work through any challenges he might be facing.
Team Red is a group of fire chiefs and associated fire-service people from across Canada who began meeting over Zoom during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic to discuss best practices, share ideas and support each other throughout the pandemic. The
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BY GORD SCHREINER Fire Chief Comox British Columbia
FSTOPBAD
Get there safely, 100 per cent of the time
ar too often, we hear stories of vehicle accidents involving firefighters responding to emergencies in fire apparatus or in their own vehicles. This is an area where we as an industry can do much better. I am not talking about the cases where others hit us. I am talking about the times we are driving too aggressively and not driving defensively enough. We need to make sure that every time we drive, we get there safely! We need to drive like our family is with us — because they are (if not your immediate family, you probably have your fire family with you). If you are driving alone, your family (both immediate and fire) will certainly be impacted if you have an accident. We know that providing quick service can have a positive impact on the outcome of an emergency. This quickness should not, in any way, compromise the safety of our firefighters, citizens or ourselves. Train your firefighters on how to improve response times without increasing driving speed and compromising safety.
A typical response can be broken down as follows: Preparation at home or work (volunteer); responding to the fire station (volunteer); getting your personal protective equipment on in the fire station; responding in the fire apparatus, and doing all the things right once you arrive at the scene.
Preparation at home or work: Significant time can be saved at home or work by ensuring you are ready to respond to an incident. These preparations can assist in saving time: have appropriate clothing ready, place your vehicle keys in the same spot all of the time, keep your pager close at hand so you hear the call, back your vehicle into your driveway, and keep your vehicle ready in cold weather (heater, cover windshield, garage).
When these things are not done, an individual, and collectively our team response time is greatly increased. A firefighter can easily save one to two minutes just by getting out of their house or workplace quicker.
there quicker. Speeding to the station is not only illegal but it is very dangerous.
Getting your personal protective equipment on in the fire station: Significant time can be saved once you’re in the fire station. You can save time here by ensuring you have put your PPE away properly and that you have all your PPE ready to use. Save additional time by ensuring that you can quickly don your PPE. Further time can be saved by getting on the appropriate response vehicle safely and securing your seat belt and equipment. A firefighter can easily save one to two minutes by getting their PPE on quickly.
Responding in the fire apparatus: Safe and defensive driving is the only way to go. One hundred per cent of the time we must get there safely. Know where you are going and plan your route to save time. Do not drive aggressively. It has been proven that little time is saved by speeding. Also proven, is that speed increases your risk of having an accident. A firefighter can easily save one to two minutes just by knowing where they are going and planning the best route to get there.
Doing all the things right once you arrive at the scene: This is where significant time can be saved. If we are able to quickly, properly
When you add this all up, we can save between four to eight minutes of response time without speeding or driving aggressively and we can do so without increasing risk to ourselves or others.
Responding to the fire station in your vehicle: Drive carefully. You are no good to us if you have an accident on the way to a call. In fact, you could greatly impact our ability to deliver important services to our customers because you will not arrive at the station, and we may have to respond to assist you. Knowing the best driving route to the station at certain times of the day is one way to get
Gord Schreiner joined the fire service in 1975 and is a full-time fire chief in Comox, B.C., where he also manages the Comox Fire Training Centre. He has delivered countless presentations in fire stations all over Canada and is available to assist your department in many areas. Contact Gord at firehall@ comox.ca.
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and effectively perform the many important tasks required, we will be much more efficient. This is where our training really kicks in. How quickly can you don your SCBA, pull a pre-connect or throw up a ladder to rescue a young child? All these skills need to be practiced and practiced again. One stumble here can really cost us a lot of time and maybe even a life. However, if all goes smoothly, lives can be saved. A firefighter can easily save two minutes by ensuring they are well trained.
When you add this all up, we can save between four to eight minutes of response time without speeding or driving aggressively and we can do so without increasing risk to ourselves or others.
Fire Service Leadership Program Graduates 2022–23
CERTIFICATE IN FIRE SERVICE LEADERSHIP
NAME POSITION DEPARTMENT
Andrea Bondi
Training Officer Markham Fire & Emergency Services Fire
Brett Woods Firefighter Cramahe Fire Department
David A.J. MacCready
Lieutenant of Training Saint John Fire Department
Dennis Eva Fire Prevention Officer CFB Gagetwon Fire Department
James Stewart Firefighter Saskatoon Fire Department
Joseph Bisson Fire Chief Bible Hill Fire Brigade
Kevin Gibbs Acting Captain Cambridge Fire Department
Ryan Agard
Acting District Chief Brampton Fire and Emergency Services
Taylor James Dalzell Fire Captain Pickle Lake Volunteer Fire Department
Warren McAuley Firefighter Saskatoon Fire Department
Ian C. Fairclough (20/21) Deputy Chief Kentville Volunteer Fire Department
Mat Pranys (21/22)
Terry Scott Deputy Chief Portugal Cove-St. Philips Volunteer Fire Dept.
Firefighter Paramedic Brandon Fire and Emergency Services
Scott Andrew Nordstrom (21/22) Qualified Lieutenant Saint John Fire Department
CERTIFICATE IN FIRE SERVICE ADMINISTRATION
NAME POSITION DEPARTMENT
Marc Cormier Fire Chief & Director of City of Dieppe Municipal Emergency Management
James Waffle Deputy Fire Chief Windsor Fire Rescue Services
CERTIFICATE IN FIRE SERVICE ADMINISTRATION, OPERATIONAL PLANNING
NAME POSITION DEPARTMENT
Mathieu Jean Dorval Lieutenant Moncton Fire Department
CERTIFICATE IN INCIDENT COMMAND
NAME POSITION DEPARTMENT
James Waffle (21/22) Deputy Fire Chief Windsor Fire Rescue Services
BACKtoBASICS
Navigating the mess
By MARK VAN DER FEYST
When we train new recruit firefighters in live fire environments, whether it is a fixed facility or an acquired structure, the environment inside the building is not as realistic as it should be or needs to be. A disconnect exists between reality and training in this arena with respect to the interior conditions and the level of housekeeping that is found in many residential structure fires.
Whenever a live fire training exercise is being conducted, we need to follow NFPA 1403 to ensure that all participants are not going to be put in harm, as well as the instructors. This will involve not having crowded or congested conditions within the burn facility like those found in many residential dwellings. For some departments, this is a health and safety issue with not promoting or providing the chance for any firefighter inside the burn facility to get entangled while doing a specific task for the evolution.
What do we mean by congested or poor housekeeping within a residential building? Look at Photos 1, 2 and 3. With these photos, you will see examples of congested interior conditions or poor housekeeping. We have heard of the term hoarding conditions as it relates to massive storage of garbage and junk within a residential building with stuff piled up from the floor towards the ceiling or stacked up in columns from floor to ceiling. Not every home is a hoarder home, but many are congested or have poor housekeeping inside.
With these types of conditions inside a structure, we are still required to navigate through it for search operations, hose advancement and fire suppression. When faced with this type of condition, for some firefighters, this may present a real challenge because they have not faced this type of environment before and do not have the confidence and skill to overcome it.
This is where the training environment needs to match the environ
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PHOTOS BY MARK VAN DER
ments that we are going to face. This can be duplicated within the burn building or training building by adding in the furniture items, boxes, laundry baskets and other items that will be found within. This will not contradict NFPA 1403 as long as these items are not in the same room as the burn room. They can be in the rooms leading up to the burn room or in the pathway that leads to the burn room. This will provide for acclimation of the congested environment for the firefighter so that when they face this at an actual structure fire, it will not be a surprise or shock.
When arriving to the address of the residential structure fire, the size up will help to indicate what the inside conditions may look like.
In Photo 4, you will see an example of this. In this photo, you are going to see congestion and poor housekeeping on the front porch. The main access door to the structure is also encroached on by the congestion. One job that the driver can do, after getting water to the nozzle, is to clear away some of the congestion from the door after the crew has made entry inside. In our photo example, the couch along with the mattress and garbage can be quickly removed from the porch and placed on the front lawn away from the travel path of the operation.
When conducting a search of the structure, a thermal imager will be a great asset. It will assist with showing what is a body and what is not. With zero visibility, it may be difficult to decipher what is a body and what is garbage or congestion using our gloved hands. With the thermal imager, we will be able to see and know quickly what is and what is not.
When searching, the team will have to climb over the congestion as opposed to trying to move it out of the way. Moving the congestion will only add more confusion and work later on in the operation. The basic tenants of search still apply in that occupants who are still inside will be found either on the floor, on a bed, couch or bathtub based upon the type of room they are in. Taking the time to search the upper portions of the room such as the countertops, tabletops, and appliances will only waste time for the search. Focus on the floor.
When a body has been located, verify that it is a body by getting up close with your search light. Look to see what features you are touching, such as face, hands, feet, torso, etc., before dragging the body or item to the exit point. If it is not a body, but rather a soft object that resembles a body, the focus can be quickly shifted back to the search and locating the occupant.
When advancing a hose line inside a structure that has congestion or poor housekeeping, the same tactics must be employed as with the search operation. This will involve climbing and/or moving over top of the congestion while advancing the line. The hose line being advanced in will get caught up with the congestion or even take some of it with it as it moves through the structure. This will require diligent hose management from the team to advance it while at the same time, dealing with the congested mess that is interfering with the line.
If applying water or painting the room or hallway while advancing, there is a good chance that the congested mess will be pushed away from the water stream hitting it or not moving and becoming water soaked as a result.
In going back to the beginning of our discussion on this topic, the disconnect with training can be fixed to bridge the gap so that when firefighters face this type of interior condition, they will not be caught off guard and will have the confidence to navigate the mess.
Mark van der Feyst has been in the fire service since 1999 and is currently a firefighter with the FGFD. Mark is an international instructor teaching in Canada, U.S. FDIC and India. He is the lead author of Fire Engineering’s Residential Fire Rescue & Tactical Firefighter books. Contact him at Mark@ FireStarTraining.com.
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Photo 4: The couch along with the mattress and garbage can be quickly removed from the porch and placed on the front lawn away from the travel path of the operation.
Cooking fires are the leading cause of home fires and home fire injuries. Unattended cooking is the leading cause of cooking fires and deaths. These statistics highlight the importance of this year’s theme, which works to better educate the public on how to help prevent fires and burns while cooking. The theme also reinforces that the majority of home cooking fires are highly preventable. It’s up to all of us to learn what those risks are so we can take the needed steps to prevent them.
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The truth about school buses
Hint…the black stripes are not guides for extrication
By DAVE ROBERTSON
Even in an era of parents going the extra mile (literally) to drive their children right to a school’s doorstep, millions of children are still bussed to get their education each day.
The big yellow rig with the black stripes down the sides is not just a cultural icon, it’s also a visual indicator of the safety we want for our children, which is, of course, paramount.
The safety of the nation’s youth was also vitally important to rural school improvement pioneer Frank Cyr. In 1937, an era when motor cars were already the norm, Cyr was prompted, after seeing an overcrowded, unheated horse-drawn school bus in rural Kansas, to take school bus safety to the national stage and develop much needed standards (Columbia University Record, Sept. 8, 1995, Vol. 21, No. 1). In 1939 he convened a conference at Columbia University’s teacher’s college that included representatives from each of the (then) 48 states, as well as specialists from various school bus manufacturers. Out of that conference came not only the ubiquitous yellow bus colour, but also 43 other school bus safety standards that are still, for the most part, enforced today.
THE COLOUR
School bus yellow is not actually yellow – not in the original name or actual colour. The first official name of the paint was National School Bus Chrome, named after the lead-chromate yellow element in the original tinting. It’s now called National School Bus Glossy Yellow. But even with yellow in the name, it’s actually a hue that resides in a colour wavelength that sits almost exactly between the red and green photoreceptors in the brain. The brain sees this kind of yellow more than most other colours because of how it’s interpreted by the brain. This was no accident. One of the chief advisers to the 1939 conference was Dr. K. S. Gibson, a doctoral scientist who was at the forefront of the science of the “visibility curve”, which is basically how well a person sees different wavelengths of light. It was his urging, as well as his placement on the National Bureau of Standards, that had the conference end up with School Bus Yellow —and eventually the placement of the black stripes (Minimum Standards for School Buses report, 1939).
THE STRIPES
Firefighters can be an opinionated lot, and the lines on the side of a bus are the cause of many a firehouse table or online discussion. Let’s look at the truth about school bus stripes.
First, to explain the striping, it should be noted that each bus body is required to have “rub rails”, which are reinforcement bars that run front to back on the bus. These enhancements make the bus stronger
The blue lines denote the middle rub rail, which does not align with the seat bottom. The red lines denote the bottom rub rail, which does not align with the floor. While this was one photo, several buses of various years, makes and models were visualized, all with the same relative issue.
during impact, and especially a lateral hit to the vehicle.
Recent internet memes and a heavily visited YouTube video (over four million views by a self-proclaimed school bus “expert”) have spread the misinformation that the stripes are to indicate demarcation lines to guide fire department extrication efforts. There is this generally accepted idea that the bottom black line aligns with the interior floor, the midline with the seat bottoms, and the top line with passenger shoulder height or the top of the seat. It’s unclear why the idea was hatched to aid extrication in the first place, but in the end, it’s (mostly) a myth. To disprove it, I’ve walked up to an empty school bus more than once, introduced myself to the driver, and measured out the floor/seat/top-of-seat distances to see if they align with the outer black stripes. They typically don’t. But aside from my own anecdotal evidence, and contrary to popular belief, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which provides the standards for school bus safety, does not require the striping to be in alignment with those black lines. The lines may be close to alignment, but they’re not there for that.
Two things coincided with the inclusion of the black striping along with the adopted yellow colouring, though there is no hard data on exactly when it started being adopted. The first was segregation. In the era of bussing Black children to separate schools in separate buses, those “Black” buses were required to have the front wheel covers painted black to indicate the race of the children on board (Smithsonian Magazine “The History of How School Buses Became Yellow” by Bryan
PHOTO BY DAVE ROBERTSON
Greene). The second was an idea originally put forth by Dr. Gibson, the visual scientist at the original conference: that breaking up the solid yellow body, ideally with black striping, makes the bus even more visible. Desegregation happened, but the black on yellow contrast from the painted wheel covers brought back Gibson’s striping idea, and it was adopted. It’s another item that is incorrectly thought of as part of the standard. It is not, and, if you start looking closely at the buses in your neighbourhood, you’ll begin to see ones with red or green striping as well since there is no hard and fast rule on stripe colour.
WHAT IT MEANS FOR EXTRICATION
Knowing the weak and strong points of the bus, how it moves and how its integrity gets compromised, are critical for extrication efforts. It’s also important to recognize that your fire department may be involved in extrication efforts on some bus configuration outliers, like EV buses or propane fueled vehicles. It should also be noted that we’re only talking about school buses here, but there are also buses converted to RVs, city transport system buses, and de-commissioned buses that are bought on the used market and then used by churches, sports teams, etc.
So, first, the good news: school buses are considered the safest vehicles on the road. A school bus is over 70 times safer for a child than riding to school by car (National Safety Council). The 1939 conference was the first, but not the last. It reconvenes every five years to revisit safety standards, and there are several current measures to protect North American kids. Significant frame, body, and roof reinforcements, and the creation of the roof-into-body roll cage, are required now. The interior of a school bus is a seriously protected space, and so it should be, considering the cargo. Consequently, in terms of extrication, it’s thankfully rare that a true bus body disassembly is going to happen. If you research “school bus accident” images, you’ll notice that even in high impact collisions, it appears that the front or rear of the bus sustain the most damage.
Just because bus extrication may be a rare event does not mean you don’t train on gaining entry into a deformed bus to get to victims, lifting the bus, or knowing the anatomy of the bus body. It’s possible you’ll perform seat displacements or post removals. Each of these actions can be difficult, especially if children are involved, and since it’s a bus, quite possibly a multi-casualty incident as well.
Which brings us back to those stripes. To hopefully put an old argument to rest: the black lines on a bus do indeed indicate impact reinforcement “rub rails”. During extrication efforts, these areas may need extra work, consideration, or a work-around if you’re performing disassembly. But, in the end, they don’t usually align with floor/seat/ seat top and shouldn’t be used as guides. It’s a myth that needs to be dispelled and inserted into training.
Are school buses safe? Yes. Will we ever ride on a bus extrication call? Possibly. That’s why we still train on them. Though a bus call is rare, I always go back to that old fire service axiom: “Never say never. Never say always.”
Chief Dave Robertson has 25 years in the fire service in five different departments, from busy urban systems to wildland to rural/semi-rural. He has instructed for his fire departments, fire academies, paramedic schools, private fire institutions, and now as the deputy chief of training for Lambton Shores Fire Rescue. He is fueled by a sincere and robust passion to make the fire service better.
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TRAINER’SCORNER
A word of encouragement
By ED BROUWER
There have been two types of influencers through three decades of my fire fighting life: encouragers and discouragers. To encourage is to give support, confidence, or hope to someone. It means to instill courage in another. Discouragement instills a loss of confidence or enthusiasm. Unfortunately, we seem to be more familiar with this word.
Do you remember the first time you walked into the fire hall? I was so excited at the thought of being a volunteer firefighter but I also had a lot of anxiety of what it would mean for me and my family. I remember looking at the members sitting around the table as I attended my first information meeting, me with my long hair, a full beard, and a belly full of butterflies.
That first night I met a discourager, unfortunately of a high rank. Over the next year I observed him treat all of us recruits with disdain. It was as if he was working hard at making us look foolish, putting us on the spot and mocking us when we failed at something. I wasn’t some young kid who couldn’t handle this guy. I was 37-years-old with plenty of life experience behind me and I believed that even bad experiences can be learning experiences. Some of the younger recruits didn’t fair so well.
Thankfully, that first night I also met an encourager — several of them in fact. One of them I will never forget. He had a huge impact on my life. Deputy Chief Brian Morris became my mentor, dear friend and the reason I stuck it out through that first year. He later became the chief and appointed me training officer. Over the next 12 years we completely rebuilt the fire department. We doubled the size of our response area, built a second fire hall and extended the old hall with a new bay and large office/ training area. Our department went from one old engine and one tender to three engines, two tenders and a rescue truck. In addition to structural protection, we added urban wildfire suppression, highway rescue, and first response medical to our service delivery. Our calls went from six per year to over 80.
Chief Morris encouraged me every step of the way, and when I hesitated, doubting my ability he and others would say, “you got this.” Think about the power in those words.
As our department grew, so did my responsibilities. In addition to setting up training for our own crew, I set up forestry seminars for all
area FDs. We conducted extrication training weekly in addition to our regular practices. Chief Morris then appointed me to deputy chief training officer. The merry band of encouragers in our volunteer department made sure I was able to attend all the outside training seminars that we had available in B.C.
The power of encouragement should not be overlooked when it comes to your training program. It is of paramount importance you remember the greatest asset in your department is your members. If you want to keep your members engaged and excited to attend practices, get them to love what they get to do. Get them to love, not dread, both new training and training reviews.
New recruits need to feel engaged. They need to feel like they are a part of the team, and not the team of recruits or newbies, but rather part of the department team. They need to feel they are valued right from the start!
The worse thing you can do is to leave your newbies feeling new and ignored. When my family moved to a new community, I joined the local volunteer fire department. I was considered a newbie (although I had my 1001 and 13 years of experience). I had no real problem with that except I found their training program to be very haphazard. It was discouraging that their rookie training was a two-year program. Be aware that when that newbie comes into the hall, you are expecting them to step into a culture that has probably been established for some time. With that in mind, let’s look at a few ideas that could be adopted into your training (if they aren’t already) to make sure your new recruits don’t disappear on you.
The key word here is engagement. Start engaging new recruits immediately from their first day, both looking the part and feeling the part. I know some departments have newbies wearing different colour helmets. That is okay, and perhaps necessary, especially if you allow newbies to attend calls. But I have always trained newbies in the same room and in the same time frame as veteran members. It is important to get to know each other as team, and the veterans could use the review. Be on the lookout for discouragers and if you find one speak to them in private. If it continues, call them out publicly. If they complain too much make them wash the truck. Don’t allow them to stand on the sidelines making negative comments.
I was asked to do some rookie training at a department and was glad to help. During
the first session I called the whole department down to their truck bay. Each member stood in their civilian clothes with their PPE gear set on the floor beside them. I instructed, “at the sound of the whistle put your gear on. When you are done raise your hands.” I warned them if it isn’t done within a certain time frame, they will all be doing it again. Before they could complain, I blew the whistle. I pretended to look at my watch, but I was watching the firefighters. What I was looking for was for one of the veteran firefighters to be helping a newbie (we are a
team, right?). I saw four or five firefighters raise their hands. I blew the whistle and said, “time... take off your gear. We are going again.” On the fourth time I finally saw a firefighter reach over and help the guy next to him who was struggling with his helmet flap. I blew the whistle and was met with an audible groan…someone said, “again?” I cheerfully said, “No, you did great”. I explained that it really wasn’t about the speed of donning their PPE, but rather whether a senior firefighter would engage with a newbie. On the fire ground you want to know your
It’s chemical. It’s inorganic.
It’s tasteless, odorless, colorless, and it’s vital for most forms of life.
It’s water, and it does a number on fire. Imagine if you could command it, manipulate it to your will.
Control water with ease.
How imposing would you be? With just a nozzle in your hands, you could charge the line and see its status. You’d be Poseidonesque unleashing your fury on the flames.
