LAKELAND - If you're not paying attention, it can be easy to lose something in the snow as winter weather piles up — a glove dropped from a vehicle, an old rake left out after the late-fall yard clean-up, the kid's bike, a garden hose ... valuable seconds needed to save a life.
The last one is something area firefighters hope residents pay particular attention to.
Neighbourhood fire hydrants buried by plowed and piled snow can cost fire crews precious moments to locate and uncover in the case of a winter emergency call.
'As the fire department, when we roll up, if we don't have to go looking for it, or dig it out, then obviously, we can get to business a little quicker," says Bonnyville Regional Fire Authority Regional Fire Chief Dan Heney.
The fire chief was expanding on the latest community-awareness message displayed on the outdoor sign at their Bonnyville headquarters.
"Seconds count in a fire. Clear snow from fire hydrants and save lives," reads the caution.
As the winter snow piles up, the message is a literal sign of the times, says Heney, explaining that it's another example of a simple message — but one that can save time for volunteer firefighters, money for taxpayers, and lives of residents. He said similar cautions are placed over the year about campfire safety, burning permits, backyard fire-pits, ice thickness and chimney cleaning.
"When you look at overall costs of firefighters going to a call, it's not just cost of fighting the fire — they've left their families to go to the call, left their job, their business. So if we can cut down on that, we can make sure they are only responding to the really important stuff, not the stuff that people could have avoided if they had taken 10 seconds or a minute," the regional fire boss told Lakeland This Week. "There's a whole bunch of things firefighters have to do on scene before they get to do what they have to do — if they don't have to dig a fire hydrant just to be able to connect to it, if they don't have to dig it out, think of the minutes we could save."
Regional fire departments have close working relationships with the municipalities they serve, so most snowplow and grader operators know how to avoid piling snow near marked hydrants. Property owners, however, can sometimes inadvertently cover hydrants in the right-of-ways along property lines. Heney said it is the shared responsibility of the municipalities and the property owners to make sure that access is clear.
Heney points out that issuing violation tickets for blocked fire hydrants is a very rare occurrence, hoping instead that residents simply remember.
"It's sure helpful," he said.
