On October 1, 2014, at about 2:30 in the afternoon, as part of Montréal Fire Prevention and Emergency Management Month, three prevention officers were going door to door on rue Delinelle, in the Sud-Ouest borough, to talk to residents about the importance and obligation of having a working smoke alarm.
Suddenly, they heard people yelling “Fire! Fire! Fire!” Without losing a second, the three ran toward the shouting and found that a fire had started in a triplex. One of them immediately called 9-1-1 to summon firefighters. The other two, quickly joined by their colleague, started evacuating the neighbouring buildings. Since the street was under major repair, the officers asked the road workers to remove the barriers around the work site, so as not to delay or obstruct the firefighters. Thanks to their efforts, along with those of the firefighters, the job was done quickly and efficiently – the code signalling the end of the incident was given at 3:46, about 1 hour and 15 minutes later, and no one was injured.
It was a fortunate coincidence that the prevention officers were on hand, for just a few minutes earlier they had given a smoke alarm to one of the tenants in the building in question. There’d been no indication that a fire was about to break out, as it was caused by an accident.
Louise Desrosiers, prevention section chief, expressed her admiration for the three officers. “The prevention officers did an exceptional job on the ground. Along with their firefighter colleagues, they made sure that there weren’t any injuries and that the fire didn’t spread. It was great teamwork! This kind of event just goes to show the importance of getting out there with our prevention message.”
“I want to thank our colleagues on the prevention side for their professionalism and vigilance. Your remarkable work contributed to the success of the response. Without you, given the limited access to the street because of the road repairs, the first firefighters couldn’t have reached the scene and extinguished the fire as quickly as they did. Your help in evacuating the buildings saved us precious seconds. We were able to restrict the fire to the first floor and concentrate on reducing damage to the building. The information you gave us when we arrived was also very valuable. Thank you once again and keep up the good work, because we all appreciate it. I would like to add that the firefighters involved did an excellent job, as always. Good work, everyone!” said Martin Pelletier, chief of the operations division (120-3), who was present at the fire.
Our congratulations to prevention officers Anick Therrien, Catherine Lavoie and Olivier Yvetôt for your quick thinking. Working as a team with the firefighters, you did a fabulous job. We also salute the excellent work by the firefighters from units 223 (gr. 1 and 3), 233, 234, 266, 276, 415, 446 (gr. 1 and 3), 476, 565, 566, 912, 935, 1005, 1423, 1605, and chiefs 120, 137, 139 and 140, all from group 1.
To read more testimonies, visit the section marked Proud of our employees!