SUNDRE – It’s not a matter of if members of the Sundre Fire Department eventually respond to a major motor vehicle collision involving an electric car, but rather when.
Hence the local fire chief’s inclination to proactively prepare by lining up specialized training.
“We have not been involved in any so far,” said Ross Clews in response to being asked whether his department had ever dealt with such an emergency.
But Clews also acknowledged the key words there are “so far.”
“It’s inevitable,” he added. “It will come one of these days where we have a big wreck with it; there’ll be a big scene where we have to manage electric vehicles in accidents.”
On the weekend of April 22-23, the fire hall hosted a course on electric vehicle extrication that involved participation from multiple fire departments including but not limited to members from Didsbury, Olds, Innisfail, and Bowden.
Overall, about 50 people were broken down into two groups of 25 that each took turns taking the one-day classroom program on how to deal with electric motor vehicles involved in collisions, he said.
“It’s a theoretical course and a display,” he said, adding a demonstration Tesla that’s been cut apart to show the vehicle’s hazard zones and safety aspects was displayed.
Included among the topics covered were learning how to identify an electric vehicle – as there are some hybrid models, the lack of an exhaust pipe isn’t always the only tell-all sign – as well as immobilizing and then disabling the vehicle to ensure the safety of emergency crews before beginning a rescue effort.
As electric vehicles operate silently, determining whether the vehicle is still running when responders arrive at the scene of an emergency is not automatically obvious. In some instances, the manufacturer recommends removing all of the fuses from behind the panel to ensure the vehicle is no longer running and potentially capable of suddenly surging forward or backward and putting responders at risk.
The course’s costs were mostly covered by a provincial grant program and the training was provided courtesy of a company called Rescue Tools Canada, Clews said, adding none of the participating departments were charged to attend.
