Fire department readying for emergency

Roger Varley, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

An emergency exercise happening in Uxbridge in mid-September will allow the fire department to test its preparedness to handle such situations.

Fire Chief Mike MacDonald said Monday the exercise will test the emergency operations centre and evacuation procedures. He said the evacuation will take place at one of the municipal buildings, with evacuees taken to the arena.

The exercise will take place on Sept. 16 and is expected to run throughout the morning.

MacDonald said the fire department still needs volunteers to help them with the exercise by playing the roles of elderly people and people with hearing disabilities. However, he stressed that the department does not want people "hanging around" watching the action.

He said the department is required to hold annual emergency exercises, but noted that sometimes they are only "tabletop" events.

"This year is going to be a larger one," he said.

In the late 1990s, the department's emergency response exercise saw ReachView Village long-term care home evacuated after a simulated explosion, with some volunteers acting as injured victims. The last time the department responded to an actual emergency was in 2022 when a derecho roared through town, tearing down trees and crushing several buildings, including the old Trinity United Church. At that time, the fire hall became the operations centre because it had an emergency generator to power the computers.

On another subject, MacDonald said the township is prepared to handle any forest fires in Uxbridge. While noting the forest canopy is nowhere near that found in northwest Ontario, where forest fires have raged for weeks, MacDonald said the department has equipment to handle fires that might break out in places like the Countryside Preserve (a hiking area that is part of the trail system) or the urban provincial park.

He said, however, the biggest threat in Uxbridge is grass fires and brush fires. As part of its prevention protocol, the fire department requires farmers to obtain permits for "oversize" fires where farmers might have a lot of brush to burn. He said an oversize fire cannot be more than 15 metres wide.