Tanker Shuttle Certification

A very successful tanker shuttle training exercise was performed this past weekend. Only one glitch occured when Engine 2 lost its draft and could no longer pump water. The truck was removed and quickly replaced with another vehicle from East Sooke FD. Other than that, the combined efforts and apparatus of Sooke, East Sooke, Otter Point and Shirley Fire Departments proved that this could be done. While we will need some more practice, there is every expectation that this will work and that we should be able to achieve certification. Why is this important you might ask. Well, if we can prove this to a third party engineer, tanker shuttle accreditation will give everyone within the certified area the equivalant to hydrant protection in areas where no hydrants exist. This is only for residential buildings within 8km of a fire hall. In Sooke, this represents about 400 properties. With an expected insurance savings of $200.00 to $400.00 per property, you can see this has huge monetary savings for anyone with an insurance policy. If we can repeat this in our mutual aid partners districts, the total savings could easily surpas $250,000.00 per year. What a great public relations effort for the fire departments if achieved. The nice thing to note is that we have sufficient apparatus in the combined departments to pull this off without having to purchase any additional tanker trucks. We hope to try this two or three more times to get proficient at it before we put in a request for the certification. Hopefully this can all be done within the next few months. An added benefit is that all the particpating departments become familiar with each others equipment and operations.