Fighting fires a hazardous job in this heat

CTV Ottawa: Firefighters keep cool in heat wave CTV's Joanne Schnurr on the number of firefighters injured fighting blazes in the extreme heat.

There’s relief ahead for the stifling summer heat smothering our city. Also tonight, more evidence that hotter is the new normal. The planet set a record last month for the hottest June ever.  The previous month of May set the same record.   For those working outside, like firefighters, it can border on dangerous. Fighting fires is hazardous at the best of times.  In this heat, it can kill.  In the past month, 12 Ottawa firefighters have had heat-related injuries.  But an amazing invention from an Ottawa firefighter is helping reduce the extent of those injuries.   It was used this morning for a fire at a restaurant on St. Joseph Boulevard in Orleans. Shortly after 10 a.m., multiple 9-1-1 calls came in regarding smoke at Mom’s BBQ restaurant at 2795 St. Joseph.  Firefighters began a fast attack to try to bring it under control.

“We were able to locate the fire, says assistant deputy chief Sean Tracey,” It appears to be confined to the exhaust system.”

With the temperature hovering near 30 degrees, the job is exhausting and dangerous.  The "bunkers", as they are called, that firefighters wear protect them from the flames but there is a downside.

"It’s like wearing a snowsuit on a summer day fighting a fire,” says firefighter Jordan Hynes.

“It’s a hot day to be fighting fires,” adds firefighter Luc Trudeau.

Trudeau knows heat exhaustion and heat stroke can set in quickly.  He's had it before.

“We are more trained now to realize once we hit our limit.  We don't push ourselves where we did before.  It costs dearly sometimes.”

So, Trudeau and a couple other firefighters have taken a break to try to bring their core temperatures down.  They are using a chair invented by an Ottawa firefighter called the “Kore Kooler Rehab Chair”.

When the body's core temperature is really high, cold water is an effective way of bringing it down.  Our arms contain multiple blood vessels. Immersing your arms in cold water cools those blood vessels which then cools your core.

Peter McBride, who is the Division Chief of Safety and Innovation with the Ottawa Fire Department, licensed the idea for the "Kore Kooler" then sold it.  It's now available around the world.

It's something a farm boy would understand,” says McBride, “which is dropping your arms in a trough when you're haying to cool your core temperature, or sticking your feet in a lake; same concept.”

The chairs have meant firefighters can return to the job site faster and healthier.

"We rotate them off, cool them down and return them to the fray when they've been cleared to go back in,” says Assistant Deputy Chief Sean Tracey.

“It's pretty effective,” says firefighter Pierre Yves Authier, as he sits with his arms immersed in the water, “if it was bigger I could feel like I’m in a pool. It would be great but the thought that I'm in the middle of a street right now it's pretty good.”

No one was injured in this fire, by the way, including the firefighters.   The chairs are being used around the world but not only by firefighters.  The military has them, so, too, do roofers, even landscapers; anyone working outside at risk in these critically high temperatures.