NEAFC 31st Annual Conference.pdf - New England Association of ...

N]~W ENGLAND A~,~O~IATION OF FIRE ,CHIEFS
detailed pictures of Underground pictures in the oven. The Swedes arg.rather frightened
of-something starting at any time, and not only do they have the preparations,
but their desks are ready, pads of paper and pencils are sharpened--as you can see
in the photograph I have here.
That would be an enormously expensive proposition, for us to operate here, but
Swedes live next door to Russians and they feel they can’t take any chances, and they
view the Worldi-situation as a serious., one. A week befo)e coming down here I heard
that Sweden, within the last few weeks, had completed ~two underground air-raid shelters-one
for 20,000 and cr.e for 10,000 people.
There are_sgme pictures of Swedish fire apparatus and pictures of British apparatus.
They took their situation-rather seriously. ’They have just placed orders and
have had delivered pumpers within the last year of a standard design, and they are
getting, through mass production, prices which are very .much lower than what normally
they could purchase ....
That is one of the things which I think bo.th Can.a..da and the United States, with
orders which the Federal Government is plahing and ~r~a~ching funds, which will mean
more and better fire equipment for our communities. We have just started getting
deliveries of two sizes of pumpers. One is rolling flow, andi the next will start within
a .few week. We are getting, not some untried or green chitdl in fire pumpers, but we
are getting the tried and true municipal ~fire-apparatus which all of you men know.
We are getting pumpers under a mass-production basis--the same as you and I ,buy
our private cars.
I will show you a few slides. In working on the plan for ’Civil-Defense in our
Province, we arbitrarily tried to do an area that we thought could conceivably put
enough tirefighters and enough apparatus to handle one atomic bomb. To those of
you who don’t kno.w the population of Ontario, we have a population of five million
people, five hundred miles East and West, and two hundred miles North and South-~
It was divided into four regions, which we felt our fire department could con,
ceivably handle. To those of you who ar t pl.anning to come to, Toronto in September,
may I point out that New England is down over here (indicating), on the far side,
and this is Niagara Falls, Buffalo and Toronto (indicating).
Next slide, please. This’ is’.tt.}e_region of eight counties which we co-crdinatedi in
one group under one fire command, to handle the emergency of an atomic attack. This
.(indicating) is the county of Wentworth in which the City of Hamilton, at the western
end of. Lake. O_nta~io, is situated, andt in that program we worked with around 10.0 brigades
and 3,000 firemen, who. today belong to the paid and volunteer fire departments
in, that ~rea--which is the nucleus in planning for Civil Defense.
Nex-t~ this is just a ,brief char~ of the organization plan which was .based, solely and
completely on the existing municipal fire service, with the Fire Chief of .the largest city
in each county and the man in charge of the departments in his county, and the other
departments that came in to help him in any emergency.
,Our government policy is that firefighting should be in charge of professionals
who handle it in peace time. This (indicating) is a communication system, an.d the
communities would fan out as you can see in the chart.
Next we mapped the City of Hamilton very thoroughly. Those who are familiar
with underwriters’ maps will appreciate the coloring and the charting which we did
for every block in the entire city to determine it. We worked very closely for a good
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