Fireball in Roslin Triggers Emergency Exercise
Fire pagers went off this morning calling five fire departments into action along Highway 366 in Roslin. It was a staged exercise that included police, EMO, and officials from two gas pipeline companies covering much of the Six Rivers area.
Pagers rang out about 9 am announcing a report of a fireball in Roslin, the site of two natural gas pipelines. The exercise called for the worst, a pipeline rupture with fire.
The fire scene was nearly 1600 metres long, with Oxford responding to one end, and Pugwash to the other, with first responders from Wentworth standing by to watch the process. Meanwhile, Maritimes and North East Pipelines were joined by officials from Heritage Gas.
Maritimes and NE runs a pipeline from Goldboro in Guysborough County, all the way through New England to the Boston area. Meanwhile, Heritage Gas has a local service line that connects in Roslin.
While the gas companies jumped into action to replicate the steps they would take to stop the flow of gas, both remotely and on scene, the fire departments rehearsed their roles in fighting fire in the surrounding woods.
The exercise was more of a challenge in securing a water supply for the fire hoses. The Collingwood Department came to the aid of Oxford on one scene, while Wallace sent a tanker to shuttle water to the Pugwash pumper at the other.
The photo at right shows PFD filling the Wallace tanker from a brook about 250 metres from the mock fire scene. The WFD then carried it's 1500 gallon payload to a waiting portable tank, shown above, attached to a stationery pumper.
The firefighters continued the exercise for nearly two hours, then all the participants gathered at the Oxford Fire Department for debriefing. First responders from the Wentworth Fire Department were onlookers for the exercise.
The mock emergency was carried out by Maritimes and NE Gas to assess the preparedness of emergency personnel and their ability to communicate across emergency responders. All were pleased with the fire service's new TMR radio system which links fire with other emergency services, province wide.
Officials were generally pleased with the exercise, noting the first responders conducted themselves well, while a few wrinkles in communication became evident and are easily corrected.