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A family’s Alfred farmhouse burned to the ground last week after it took an hour for fire trucks to arrive.
The fire destroyed the home and killed the family’s dog. Now Émilie Deschênes wants answers about why it took so long for help to arrive.
“I’m very frustrated about the one-hour delay,” she said.
The farmhouse burned down on the morning of Dec. 27 after Deschênes and her partner Ken Tremblay and their 20-month-old son Caleb were out grocery shopping.
The family headed out to Hawkesbury. While they were out, Deschênes got a text from neighbour Ron Legault, who had noticed black smoke billowing from the farmhouse on Horse Creek Road just south of the village of Alfred, about 80 kilometres east of Ottawa.
“We did a U-turn and went home,” said Deschênes.
Legault had already called 911. And this is where the problem began. His cell phone had a Quebec number, so the call was relayed to Quebec. The dispatcher there called a fire station in St. Isidore, about 30 minutes away even though the fire station in Alfred was only a few minutes away. The firefighters had to fill their tank with water from a nearby creek before they could tackle the fire.
Emilie Deschênes and Ken Tremblay survey the damage.
By the time Deschênes and Tremblay got home, their house was already engulfed in flames.
“It was almost completely destroyed,” said Deschênes
The firefighters from St. Isidore put out the fire, but could do nothing to save the house. The family dog, Booboo, perished in the inferno, but three horses in a nearby barn were not injured.
Legault and Janice Winsor, who live next door on the dead-end road, had almost the same mix-up happen to them on Nov. 27, 2015 after a fire broke out in an outdoor electrical panel.
Winsor called 911, reaching a dispatcher in Quebec, who also sent a fire crew from St. Isidore. Meanwhile Legault battled the blaze by shovelling snow from the ground into the fuse box. The fire had been extinguished, but started again when the fire crew rolled up to the house.
Richard Sincennes, the fire chief of neighbouring L’Orignal and Champlain said there are two problems. One is that some people have phones with Quebec numbers. The other is that sometimes phone calls made from cell phones are captured by cell phone towers on the Quebec side, then relayed to the 911 system in Quebec.
Sincennes, who has an Ontario cell phone number, found himself in a similar situation a few years ago when he witnessed a vehicle that crashed into the ditch after striking a deer on Highway 17.
Sincennes called 911 on his cell phone to request an ambulance, but his call was relayed to Quebec. The 911 dispatcher had no idea where Sincennes was trying to direct the ambulance. Luckily, no one was seriously injured.
“I’m not trying to say it happens often. But it happens.”
Prescott-Russell municipal fire chiefs are aware of the problem, said Aurèle Constantineau, deputy fire chief of Nation municipality. There are usually several complaints about misdirected calls every month, he said.
Although none of the mix-ups have resulted in a fatality, Constantineau worries about the possibility. A few minutes can mean the difference between life and death, he said.
On one occasion several years ago, a cell phone call about a fire in Limoges was picked up by Quebec 911 and routed to the Kemptville fire department — about 55 km away — because the two towns both have a street with a similar name. Kemptville’s quick-thinking fire chief recognized the error and rerouted the call to Limoges.
Constantineau doesn’t know of any technological way to solve the problem — although perhaps cell phone GPS could be used by dispatchers to pinpoint locations. He advises people in rural areas to take a few extra seconds, if possible, to make 911 calls from a landline telephone instead of a cell phone.
Since the fire, Deschênes has had many offers of help. Her horses are staying in a friend’s barn, and her family has been offered a house to live in while their house is rebuilt.
“Everyone has come together. I love it,” she said.
The cause of the fire is yet to be determined, but Deschênes suspects an electrical problem. Still, she wants answers about why it took so long for firefighters to respond.
“It’s an administrative problem. I want it explained.”
So does Winsor.
“In a perfect world, the closest fire department should come first,” she said. “This is the second time it’s happened in a year. I plan on taking this up with the municipality.”
jlaucius@postmedia.com
查看原文...
The fire destroyed the home and killed the family’s dog. Now Émilie Deschênes wants answers about why it took so long for help to arrive.
“I’m very frustrated about the one-hour delay,” she said.
The farmhouse burned down on the morning of Dec. 27 after Deschênes and her partner Ken Tremblay and their 20-month-old son Caleb were out grocery shopping.
The family headed out to Hawkesbury. While they were out, Deschênes got a text from neighbour Ron Legault, who had noticed black smoke billowing from the farmhouse on Horse Creek Road just south of the village of Alfred, about 80 kilometres east of Ottawa.
“We did a U-turn and went home,” said Deschênes.
Legault had already called 911. And this is where the problem began. His cell phone had a Quebec number, so the call was relayed to Quebec. The dispatcher there called a fire station in St. Isidore, about 30 minutes away even though the fire station in Alfred was only a few minutes away. The firefighters had to fill their tank with water from a nearby creek before they could tackle the fire.
Emilie Deschênes and Ken Tremblay survey the damage.
By the time Deschênes and Tremblay got home, their house was already engulfed in flames.
“It was almost completely destroyed,” said Deschênes
The firefighters from St. Isidore put out the fire, but could do nothing to save the house. The family dog, Booboo, perished in the inferno, but three horses in a nearby barn were not injured.
Legault and Janice Winsor, who live next door on the dead-end road, had almost the same mix-up happen to them on Nov. 27, 2015 after a fire broke out in an outdoor electrical panel.
Winsor called 911, reaching a dispatcher in Quebec, who also sent a fire crew from St. Isidore. Meanwhile Legault battled the blaze by shovelling snow from the ground into the fuse box. The fire had been extinguished, but started again when the fire crew rolled up to the house.
Richard Sincennes, the fire chief of neighbouring L’Orignal and Champlain said there are two problems. One is that some people have phones with Quebec numbers. The other is that sometimes phone calls made from cell phones are captured by cell phone towers on the Quebec side, then relayed to the 911 system in Quebec.
Sincennes, who has an Ontario cell phone number, found himself in a similar situation a few years ago when he witnessed a vehicle that crashed into the ditch after striking a deer on Highway 17.
Sincennes called 911 on his cell phone to request an ambulance, but his call was relayed to Quebec. The 911 dispatcher had no idea where Sincennes was trying to direct the ambulance. Luckily, no one was seriously injured.
“I’m not trying to say it happens often. But it happens.”
Prescott-Russell municipal fire chiefs are aware of the problem, said Aurèle Constantineau, deputy fire chief of Nation municipality. There are usually several complaints about misdirected calls every month, he said.
Although none of the mix-ups have resulted in a fatality, Constantineau worries about the possibility. A few minutes can mean the difference between life and death, he said.
On one occasion several years ago, a cell phone call about a fire in Limoges was picked up by Quebec 911 and routed to the Kemptville fire department — about 55 km away — because the two towns both have a street with a similar name. Kemptville’s quick-thinking fire chief recognized the error and rerouted the call to Limoges.
Constantineau doesn’t know of any technological way to solve the problem — although perhaps cell phone GPS could be used by dispatchers to pinpoint locations. He advises people in rural areas to take a few extra seconds, if possible, to make 911 calls from a landline telephone instead of a cell phone.
Since the fire, Deschênes has had many offers of help. Her horses are staying in a friend’s barn, and her family has been offered a house to live in while their house is rebuilt.
“Everyone has come together. I love it,” she said.
The cause of the fire is yet to be determined, but Deschênes suspects an electrical problem. Still, she wants answers about why it took so long for firefighters to respond.
“It’s an administrative problem. I want it explained.”
So does Winsor.
“In a perfect world, the closest fire department should come first,” she said. “This is the second time it’s happened in a year. I plan on taking this up with the municipality.”
jlaucius@postmedia.com
查看原文...
