The Municipal Health and Safety Association and

The Office of the Fire Marshal Partnerships

The Ontario Fire College

A partnership that began several years ago and continues to prosper, the MHSA is an active participate in the curriculum offered at the Ontario Fire College (OFC) in Gravenhurst, teaching many of its emergency services training programs to OFC attendees. In 2000 the partners completed the construction of a Confined Space Entry Facility that enables MHSA to teach hands-on confined space training to firefighters. Over the years, MHSA participation and program offerings at the college has expanded to include Silo Fire Awareness and Agricultural Machinery and Heavy Equipment Rescue training, as well as numerous other programs.

The partnership has grown to include similar programs currently operating at the Blyth Emergency Services Training Centre and soon to be available at the Kingston Training Facility.

Electrical Safety for Emergency Responders Program

Partnering with Hydro One Networks and various emergency response organizations throughout the province, the MHSA and the OFM developed a program and handbook entitled, “Electrical Safety Handbook for Emergency Responders”. To date, the program has been rolled out to over 50,000 emergency responders throughout the province. In addition to the booklet and the classroom training sessions, plans are currently in the works to develop and online version of the program.

Heat Stress Calculator Tool and Training Program

The latest initiative by the Office of the Fire Marshal (OFM) and the Municipal Health and Safety Association (MHSA) is a perfect example of the transfer of theoretical research in practical action. Data shows that heart attacks due to heat stress is the number one cause of death in Firefighters. Thanks to a recent study entitled The Management of Heat Stress for the Firefighter, conducted by researchers Dr. Tom McLellan, PhD., and Glen Selkirk, M.Sc., the OFM and the MHSA are working in partnership to get the message out about how to reduce the adverse effects of heat stress to the Firefighter.

As a result of their research study, Dr. McLellan and Mr. Selkirk made several recommendations, among which, was the development of a heat stress calculator designed to assist dispatchers and incident commanders in calculating heat stress conditions for Firefighters on the job.

In the spirit of prevention, the MHSA, the OFM, the WSIB, the Toronto Fire Department and the researchers are working together to take this research to the next level and enable the transition from research to practical application by developing a training program centered around the heat stress calculator tool. The partners hope that the use of this new tool will validate and standardize current practices involving cooling strategies (ie. forearm submersion) among Firefighters, and become the new best practice used by Firefighters throughout the province.

To that end, plans are currently in the works for the MHSA to develop the training program that will accompany the heat stress calculator and assist the OFM in communicating the information to Firefighters throughout Ontario. The OFM has already committed to add the training and the calculator to existing programs at the Ontario Fire College, and the MHSA will make the program available as part of its offerings of Emergency Services Programs which currently include Confined Space Entry and Trench Rescue, as well as through its website, and new mobile training unit