On the front lines across B.C., firefighters douse flames, extract people from crushed cars and execute technical rescues—but before they can put those skills into practice, they have to learn them at the Justice Institute of B.C. The province’s only post-secondary institution dedicated to applied public safety education invited media to its Maple Ridge campus Thursday to learn first-hand what firefighting recruits experience, and I was the only journalist to take them up on it. “We teach them how to put their gear on, we teach them how to use hose lines, forcible entry stuff,” said Kit Little, the school’s firefighting program manager. “And eventually we get inside this beautiful building here and we teach them how to fight interior fires.” Erin Co, who works with JIBC in a non-educational role, took part in the training demonstration. After kitting up in full firefighting gear, including pants, jacket, helmet and breathing apparatus and air tank, Co and I took part in some exercises that students go through in the program. After receiving instruction from Little about properly fitting the self-contained breathing apparatus, us would-be students entered a dark room where an instructor lit a stack of wooden pallets on fire and shut the door. The room quickly filled with smoke, flames and searing heat before Little explained the proper technique for dousing the flames. The next lesson involved dealing with a burning car. After a demonstration from the instructor, Co took control of the hose and fired a stream of water through the car’s windows. In a post-class interview with CTV News, Co said the day of instruction gave her a new appreciation for the work firefighters do. “We know that first responders are our everyday heroes, but to be able to really have that gravitas and you see it and feel it firsthand, I think is really powerful,” she said. The firefighting program at JIBC involves 12 weeks of online education before recruits attend seven weeks of hands-on training at the Maple Ridge campus. “They’re job ready. That’s our focus, to get them job ready,” said Little, who served with the District of North Vancouver Fire and Rescue Service for 28 years before joining JIBC.
