If and when New Westminster firefighters get summoned to a hazardous materials spill on the railways, they won’t know for certain if it’s real or not.
Coun. Chuck Puchmayr, co-chair of the city’s railway community advisory panel, said an emergency response mockup is being planned. New Westminster Fire and Rescue Services and Southern Railway of British Columbian will be participating in the drill.
“We have a really good idea of the dangerous goods that go through our city,” he said. “Fire Chief (Tim) Armstrong is looking to do both a tabletop exercise and a mockup response.”
As part of the exercise, the city would send out fire trucks as if a real chemical incident had occurred.
“It’s just making sure the protocols we have in place now with disclosure of those goods,” Puchmayr said.
While the railway will know about the testing exercise, Puchmayr said firefighters probably won’t immediately know it’s not for real.
Not only will the exercise test that the rail cars are carrying what they’re supposed to, but it will also give firefighters a chance to work on some new skills.
The New Westminster fire department’s 2014 budget includes funds to establish a hazardous materials response team, which would respond to emergencies such as the derailment of rail cars carrying dangerous goods
“That’s an important one – that we test that out with the different rail carriers,” Puchmayr said. “That will also tie into our hazmat team that we have now budgeted for. We are starting to train. We are going start outfitting them.”
Puchmayr said the plan is to train local firefighters to respond to hazardous material incidents.
“Every firefighter, every suppression firefighter will have that certification. We want to make sure that it doesn’t matter what shift there is an incident on, we don’t have to call in a specialist. They will all be specialists,” he said. “We are very excited about that.”
