Lately, there seems to be more sirens and emergency vehicles on the roads.
“COVID has had a significant impact. We’ve had more fires and fire fatalities in 2020 then we’ve had in years. The statistics are overwhelming. Because we have people in conditions that they may not have initially been set up with right. We’ve got people in homes doing things they normally wouldn’t do or doing more of these things… the risk is there and it’s even greater because of how our lives have had to adjust to this,” said Frank Donati, program coordinator for the Fire Inspection and Fire Safety Education program at Fanshawe College.
One of the reasons for this is because of how the pandemic impacted fire safety, prevention, and inspection.
In Ontario, the fire services are based on the three lines of defense. Those three lines are 1. to ensure that the buildings are safe, 2. that individuals are educated, and 3. suppressing the fires.
“The firefighters in the fire truck are one part of a three-part solution, and fire prevention is two of those parts. Because if we can be proactive and make sure that the buildings are safe as they are meant to be under law, and people know what they’re supposed to do and understand what they’ re supposed to do in an emergency then we won’t have those fires. Which means that the firefighters have to risk their lives rushing to go and deal with emergencies,” said Donati when explaining why fire safety and inspection is so important.
Due to COVID, it has made inspection and education more difficult. Donati explained how inspectors are not able to go to locations like they would normally do, how they had to switch to virtual inspections, and increasing social media presence for education. He highlights how it isn’t perfect, but it is the best they can do at this time.
But it is not only the industry that his been impacted. Donati explained how online learning is not optimal for every program but even the Fire Inspection and Fire Safety Program had to adjust due to the pandemic. He said that he created virtual inspections where he went out, taken 360-degree photos of the building, and then put them into a building software. This allows students to look through the building and see what is going on.
He said that it is beneficial and something he hopes to continue using as it allows him to add things in such as violations and put in links to clips and pdfs as students move through the building.
While the pandemic is challenging and has created a lot of issues, Donati feels like it has in a way benefitted students. “I think if there’s one thing that online teaching in the COVID pandemic is giving our students is the skillset to become resilient and be able to adapt to change and overcome it and work through it. So, open-minded, without a doubt.”
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