The Citizen, 2015-02-26, Page 27THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2015. PAGE 27.
Sparling looks back on hectic first year as fire chief
Two-thousand and fourteen was
literally a baptism by fire for Fire
Department of North Huron
(FDNH) Chief David Sparling as his
first year in the position was also the
busiest on record for the department
or its predecessors.
In his year-in-review report which
was presented to North Huron
counciul during its Feb. 17 meeting,
Sparling noted that in 2014, there
were significantly more calls than
the FDNH or the Wingham and
Blyth fire departments combined
had ever faced in one year.
The report states the FDNH
responded to 194 calls in total,
nearly 40 per cent more than in
2013. The average number of calls
for the four years prior to 2014 was
130 per annum.
With the exceptions of mutual aid,
downed power lines and medical
calls, FDNH saw increases in calls
across all types of emergencies over
2013 numbers.
Alarm system activations
increased from 15 to 20 calls in
2014, carbon monoxide false alarms
increased from 14 to 15 calls, actual
carbon monoxide emergencies
increased from zero to six calls, fire
calls more than doubled from 15
calls to 33 calls, gas leaks tripled
from four calls to 12 calls, motor
vehicle collisions increased from 20
calls to 35 calls and other calls
increased from 14 calls to 24 calls.
The report outlines nearly half of
all calls occurred during business
hours (Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5
p.m.) and that it wasn’t just the total
call volume that was up.
“Not only were the call totals
significant, the once-in-a-lifetime
calls were also substantial,” Sparling
stated in his report. “Three formal
Critical Incident Stress (CIS)
debriefs [which follow particularly
traumatizing calls] were required,
several other one on one meetings
were conducted with our Chaplain
and FDNH hosted a CIS Awareness
session for our firefighters and their
spouses/partners.”
Sparling also reported the FDNH’s
‘chute’ time, or the time it took for
firefighters to receive the first page-
out for an event to the site of the
emergency, averaged under four
minutes for both stations despite
dealing with some less-than-
ordinary calls.
“There was definitely some unique
stuff last year,” Sparling said in an
interview with The Citizen. “The
volume and nature of the calls were
definitely out of the ordinary.”
Sparling pointed to fires
complicated by methane in pig barns
as a prime example of not only the
number of calls increasing, but
increasing substantially.
“Our long-term average on
methane pig barns was about one
every 18 months,” he said. “That
means that every year and a half we
would see one of them but we had
two over last year and they were
fairly close together.”
Because of the fires, Sparling said
the FDNH is beginning to work with
the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture,
Food, and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA)
to further study how those fires can
be avoided or better handled.
“The second odd thing was that we
had extensive carbon monoxide
training this year,” he said. “It was
the perfect year for us to do it
because we had 20 carbon monoxide
calls, six of which were situations
where there was carbon monoxide
present. The training was very
appropriate and definitely paid off.”
Sparling also said the number of
serious motor vehicle collisions was
up significantly.
“We’ve had the same amount of
extrications from vehicles necessary
in one year as we would normally
see in two to three years’ worth of
calls,” he said.
Not all the news from the busy
year has been bad, however, as
Sparling pointed out the firefighters
have been able to use skills they had
only trained on before.
“We’ve been working hard for
over two years on water use and
movement at rural emergency sites,”
he said. “The calls have given us a
lot of time with that.”
There were also a number of false
alarms from local buildings with
alarm systems. While it can be
frustrating to deal with that, Sparling
said the FDNH still appreciates the
buildings that have them.
“We liked alarmed and automated
alarmed buildings,” he said. “We did
have some facilities with alarm
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Battling blazes
Fires were up across the board for the Fire Department of North Huron in 2014. Whether it
was structure fires, like the one shown above on Nature Centre Road last September, or
once-in-a-lifetime calls, as Chief David Sparling called them, the department was kept busy
throughout the year. (File photo)
Calling all Beatles fans! The look,
the sound and excitement of The
Beatles live performances will be re-
created at Blyth Memorial Hall
when the international touring cast
of Beatlemania Revisited comes to
Blyth for a special performance on
Saturday, March 7 at 8 p.m.
All songs in the Beatlemania show
are performed “note for note” by the
amazing cast members who are
further augmented with incredible
costumes and vintage instruments to
truly capture the spirit of the Fab
Four. The evening kicks off with
their famous 1964 appearance on
The Ed Sullivan Show and follows
The Beatles through their entire
career with numerous costume
changes including the Sgt. Pepper
and Abbey Road eras.
In total, over 30 Beatles songs are
performed live throughout the
evening including “I Wanna Hold
Your Hand,” “Ticket to Ride,”
“Yesterday,” “Penny Lane,” “Help!”,
“A Hard Day Night,” “Yellow
Submarine,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Sgt.
Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”
and of course “Hey Jude” amongst
the many audience favourites.
Colum Henry, who portrays John
Lennon, says “This is a family-
oriented, audience-interactive
performance that will have
everybody singing, dancing and
clapping along.”
Tickets to see Beatlemania
Revisited at Blyth Memorial Hall on
Saturday, March 7 at 8 p.m. are on
sale now. Priced at only $35 for
adults and $30 for seniors. Tickets
are available at the Blyth Festival
box office, by phone at 519-
523-9300 or online at
www.blythfestival.com
‘Beatlemania Revisited’
to turn back clock on
Blyth Festival’s stage
By Denny Scott
The Citizen
Continued on page 28