Fire Engines Skate While Garage Burns

A SUNDAY NIGHT ICE STORM IN LINDSAY, ONTARIO, led to one of those times that everybody would rather forget about.

The roads were so badly iced up that the Kawartha Lakes Fire Dept. added a 4th engine to the run order for structure fires during the evening. It still wasn’t enough.

[photopress:ice_jason_bain_lindsay_post.jpg,full,centered]
Linday Post / Jason Bain photo

When Bob Allen looked out his window and saw flames in his free-standing 3-bay garage, he called the FD at 7:50 pm. During the response, three of the engines slid off the roads into a ditch and the fourth one didn’t arrive on the scene until 8:30.

It was a non-hydrant area and they had to wait until after 9:00 before finally getting water on the fire. By then the garage was completely destroyed.

Nobody’s blaming anybody. It was just one of those bad deals all the way around. A good night for the tow trucks, though.

The Lindsay Post has all the DETAILS.

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Dal90

If it takes 2 days to sand roads like that, seems that at least a reserve engine needs to be kept chained up through the winter.

Amazes me how many departments don't have real chains. Some years ours don't come out of storage; other years I've seen lesser-used pieces like the water supply engine & ladder sit chained up for two weeks. Most of the fleet also has on-spots for dealing with the minor stuff (I wouldn't trust them as sufficient in a situation like the pic).

You may only truly need them once in 5 years, or 10, or 20. But the expectation of the community is you do your best to prepare. Having a quarter million dollar fire truck that can't make it up a road for lack of $300 set of tire chains is simply sad.