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S unday, N o v e m b e r 21, 1999 O a k v ille B e a v e r Weekend (Continued from page 1) In his summary of evidence pre sented over the course of the inquest, Carr noted that firefighters had crawled through dense black smoke to rescue the four victims, who were all found on the floor of an upstairs bedroom. "(The firefighters) are young, strong, intelligent, highly trained officers who are dedicated to find ing these occupants and getting them out as quickly as possible," he said. "They performed their duties in an exemplary fashion and no one has ever suggested otherwise." However, the inquest has heard some criticism of the fire depart ment's handling of the emergency, particularly from two Halton police officers and an independent consul tant John Medcof, a lawyer repre senting the Fedoruk family, asked jurors to consider whether confu sion in communications may have contributed to the deaths of the four victims. The inquest heard that the Oakville fire department dispatcher sent trucks to a "possible house fire," but didn't inform them that a 911 call had been received from a person trapped inside the house. "In any emergency situation, the people on the spot can only make decisions based on the evi dence of the information they have and unfortunately, the communica tion was not as complete as it could have been," noted Medcof. Fire inquestwill continue deliberations M onday He also suggested local emer gency agencies need to do a better job at working together in crisis sit uations. Carr agreed the response wasn't perfect. However, he noted that it was a wonder the department received that 911 call at all. Within 24 seconds of the call coming in, the fire burned through telephone lines and severed the connection. "In many respects, it was a mir acle that the call from inside the house got to the Oakville fire department when it did," he said. "We needed one more miracle that night. We needed those people to be waiting for us at the front of the house when the first fire truck arrived. `Tragically, that night we ran out of miracles," Carr added. In addition to the 22 joint rec ommendations agreed to by all par ties to the inquest, the Ontario Professional Firefighters' Association offered an additional eight suggestions, including the need for increased fire department staffing. Currently, fire trucks respond ing to emergency calls are staffed with two to four officers. The asso ciation suggested to the jury that four people should be on all front line vehicles. Some of the suggested recomendations include: Boards of Education consider fire safety education to be a manda tory component of curricula and that programs be targeted at stu dents from kindergarten through the final year of high school. Community fire departments take an active role in educating the public in their community about fire safety, including smoke alarms, home fire escape planning, home inspection programs and seniors' safety. This public education role may include partnerships with local service clubs, industry, media and Boards of Education. Consideration be given to amending the Ontario Fire Code to make interconnected smoke alarms mandatory in ail existing homes. (These have been mandatory in new homes since 1990). Consideration be given to amending the Ontario Building Code and the Ontario Fire Code to make residential sprinkler protec tion mandatory in all new homes built The residential insurance industry consider premium incen tives to promote the installation of residential sprinkler systems in all homes. Consideration be given to amending the Ontario Fire Code to require a carbon monoxide detector on the sleeping level(s) on all resi dences. The Fire Marshal and the Fire Marshal's Public Fire Safety Council, working together with communities, consider evaluating the effectiveness of various fire safety programs and, where appropriate, develop recommendations for improve ment. Communities, through a 911 commit tee, review their existing 911 call taking and dispatching relationships between police, fire and ambulance services to ensure the model in place meets accepted response times. All fire departments consider obtain ing a modem computer aided dispatching system that interfaces directly with 911, provides printed information directly to fire fighting crews when they are dispatched and allows for an efficient station alerting system. That ambulance personnel and police be dispatched automatically to all structur al fires. That fire departments develop appro priate protocols to ensure all pertinent information received from 911 callers is forwarded to the incident commander at the scene of a fire or other emergency. That fire departments review their radio communications to ensure separate frequencies are available for emergency operations, dispatching and administrative functions; at least two portable radios are available for each tower, pumper or aerial crew of three or more firefighters respond ing to a fire or other emergency call; and all self-contained breathing apparatus be equipped with speaking diaphragms to improve the quality of voice communica tion. at Stage West A ll Suite Hotel and Dinner Theatre Restaurant NEW YEAR'S EVE HOTEL & THEATRE PACKAGE One Night Suite Accommodation Fruit & Cheese Tray Two luxurious bathrobes Souvenir Millennium bottle of wine plus two champagne flutes Two tickets for Buffet Dinner & Performance of "Music of the Millennium" Champagne Toast and Party Favours Midnight Buffet Dancing to D.J. 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