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PAGE 22 Wednesday <strong>September</strong> <strong>19</strong> <strong>2018</strong><br />
BAY HARBOUR<br />
Latest Christchurch news at www.star.kiwi<br />
News<br />
Local<br />
News<br />
Now<br />
Firefighters put to test in training exercises<br />
Fire rages, homes at risk<br />
• By Matt Salmons<br />
CAR FIRES, smoke, fire engines<br />
and cliff rescues, Governors <strong>Bay</strong><br />
hosted all manner of simulated<br />
incidents for an annual training<br />
day on Saturday.<br />
Volunteers from the Governors<br />
<strong>Bay</strong>, Diamond <strong>Harbour</strong>, Lyttelton,<br />
Waikuku, West Melton<br />
and Bottle Lake brigades tackled<br />
scenarios regularly faced by fire<br />
crews.<br />
Governors <strong>Bay</strong> Volunteer Fire<br />
Brigade chief fire officer Andrew<br />
Norris said the annual event went<br />
“perfect.”<br />
The 52 firefighters and 14<br />
“setters” taking part, spent the<br />
morning rotating between four<br />
scenarios.<br />
“They’re the people running the<br />
scenarios. We call them setters<br />
because they set the scene,” Mr<br />
Norris said.<br />
The four scenarios were rescuing<br />
a heart attack victim from<br />
a dinghy, recovering a crashed<br />
mountain-biker, controlling a<br />
vegetation fire and dealing with a<br />
car fire.<br />
“The basic of it is to keep it<br />
simple,” Mr Norris said.<br />
“We had patients with realistic<br />
wounds, like broken bones and<br />
things like that.”<br />
The life-like wounds were made<br />
by Mr Norris’ niece Alix Fields<br />
BURN-OFF: Firefighters practice tackling a vegetation fire.<br />
“She’s really into cosmetic structure fire at the old vicarage<br />
wounds for fancy dress and by St Cuthbert’s Church.<br />
parties. They were just made of Mr Norris said organisers filled<br />
latex and tissue paper . . . but they the building with a harmless<br />
looked really good.”<br />
smoke so firefighters could practice<br />
recovering people.<br />
A few people took to community<br />
Facebook groups to ask why For the final exercise, Governors<br />
<strong>Bay</strong> firefighters set up<br />
so many emergency services were<br />
in the area, but only one group abseiling gear at a Governors<br />
was approached by the public. <strong>Bay</strong> – Teddington Rd quarry to<br />
“Some people went up to the simulate a cliff rescue.<br />
guys doing the mountain-biker Four firefighters from the<br />
recovery to ask if it was real,” Mr Woolston station assisted with<br />
Norris said.<br />
the exercise as they had the training<br />
to retrieve the patient using a<br />
“I’m not aware of anyone being<br />
overly concerned, but it is possible,<br />
we had fire engines running “They go down, load him up<br />
rescue basket.<br />
about the bays.”<br />
and everyone else was involved<br />
Afterwards, firefighters converged<br />
to take on a simulated<br />
in haulage . . . pulling them back<br />
up.”<br />
DESCENT: Rescuing a patient at a Governors <strong>Bay</strong> Teddington<br />
Rd quarry.<br />
REALISTIC: A patient is checked during car fire training.
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