(Taber Fire Department on Facebook)

By Justin Goulet

Taber Fire addresses challenges and concerns of conducting fire drills amid pandemic

Nov 23, 2020 | 11:38 AM

TABER, AB – The Taber Fire Department is addressing some concerns from the public regarding fire drills during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Steve Swarbrick, Fire Prevention Officer, explained the situation to Lethbridge News Now.

“We’ve been getting a lot of questions due to the COVID pandemic and the grouping of people. So, a lot of places such as schools [and] businesses, if they’re doing their fire drills, they’re finding that they’re getting excessive groupings of people, which creates a little bit of concern for them,” Swarbrick explained.

According to the National Fire Code 2019 (AE), ‘certain occupancy of buildings are required to conduct fire drills at predetermined intervals’. However, buildings (residential, business, communal, etc.) do not technically need to conduct live fire drills every time.

“There’s exceptions to it, with the evacuations,” Swarbrick said.

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“It’s partly due to the COVID restrictions but there actually is portions of the code that allow them [a building operator] to change their fire drills. It doesn’t always have to be a fire drill with a live evacuation or a full evacuation. We can change it up so that they’re just doing it with their supervisory staff. It creates different angles that they can look at it and determine what they need [and] where they need to improve.”

He said the notice put out on social media, which can be viewed below, was just to raise awareness and let residents know the Taber Fire Department has heard their concerns.

Swarbrick said the department is open for questions at any time and welcomes feedback from the community. He encourages business owners and building operators to invite the fire department out for their regular drills.

“It’s our world and we look at things a little bit differently, so we can go through a building and check in with people and let them know, ‘your left door in this office was left open’ and ‘we always want to clos doors when we exit a building’. If we come out, we’re able to talk to the people and visit with them to discuss some of the places that we can improve, or they can improve on their fire drills,” he told LNN.

Anyone with questions or concerns can contact the Taber Fire Department by phone at 403-223-6010 or via email at fireprevention@taber.ca.