Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Langley City Emergency Preparedness

Fire Truck

Langley City's Fire Rescue Service continues to enhance our community's emergency preparedness, including by focusing on training and education.

Education is one of the "5 E's" of Community Safety Risk Reduction.

The other "E's" are having an effective emergency response, engineering risk reduction such as through new building designs and safety systems, enforcement to ensure compliance such as by ensuring sprinkler systems are functional, and economic incentives to help guide people to lower risk, such as by providing free smoke alarms or having graduated fines for non-compliance with safety codes.

Langley City has a large floodplain and natural area in the middle of our community. The floodplain increases our risk for climate change-related events, such as winter floods and wildfires in summer.

Langley City Fire Rescue Service applied for a $25,927.80 grant from the UBCM Community Emergency Preparedness Fund to support enhancing education on these climate change risks, including how to suppress wildfires safely, how to reduce wildfire risk including reducing the risk of wildfires from spreading to buildings, and how to provide community education on overall fire risk reduction.

The Fire Rescue Service also applied to purchase a Palmer Dollhouse Ventilation Prop with the grant. This prop helps firefighters understand how fires spread in buildings due to dynamic factors such as airflow.

Langley City Council approved the Fire Rescue Service applying for the grant.

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