Olds firefighters wind up training by burning house

Doug Collie Jul 16, 2022 9:00 AM
Firefighters practised chopping a hole in the roof for ventilation at an abandoned house during a fire training exercise at the Olds Regional Exhibitioin grounds.▲
Firefighters suit up before the fire training exercise begins.▲
Firefighters practised cutting a hole in the roof for ventilation at an abandoned house during a fire training exercise at the Olds Regional Exhibitioin grounds.▲
Signs were set up along 54th Street warning drivers and passers-by about the fire training exercise.▲
Firefighters sprayed jets of water on the house from at least three sides.▲
On July 9, this abandoned home in the Olds Regional Exhibition grounds along 54th Street was set on fire as part of an Olds Fire Department training exercise. A handful of people watched from a seacan just to the south of the house and from the adjacent O.R. Hedges area. Doug Collie/MVP Staff▲

OLDS — Twelve Olds firefighters got in a day of training by extinguishing a deliberately-set fire in an abandoned house at the Olds Regional Exhibition grounds last weekend. 

No one was hurt during the event, deputy fire chief Jason Kjorsvik said in an email. 

The event began at 9 a.m. on July 9 when firefighters prepped the house. The fire was ignited at about 11:30 a.m. and extinguished at about 3:30 p.m., at which time the crew left the area, turning it back over to Olds Regional Exhibition. 

Kjorsvik says the last time a structure was donated to the department in order to practise extinguishing that type of fire was during the winter of 2020. 

“This was a structure west of town that the fire department used for training for a few months before it was burned down,” he wrote. 

Some residents reported a fire on the west end of Olds on Sunday. 

Kjorsvik said that fire, which occurred west of town, was actually another controlled burn to a structure, undertaken by the Didsbury Fire Department.   

 

Return to MountainviewToday.ca