Santa, CAF partnership ensures fire-safe operations
14 Wing Greenwood Fire Chief Captain Drew Spinney says, while he’s known Santa Claus all his life, it’s really only been in more recent years he’s been able to work more professionally with Santa.
While Santa was in town December 2 for a festive visit with 14 Wing’s families, at the base holiday party, 14 Fire Emergency Services’ firefighters were on deck as his escort, transporting him and Sparky to the Annapolis Mess for a lights-flashing, sirens-wailing arrival. Spinney says, though, Santa is at 14 FES at least once a year for high-level training.
“Santa has to stay up-to-date on his fire extinguisher training, like anyone,” Spinney says. While the military fire services’ PFET (Portable Fire Extinguisher Training) program is a Canadian Armed Forces-specific offering, Santa’s operations require a comparable high level of organized training and oversight.
“I’m responsible for hundreds of elves in a very busy and complicated workshop – and they sometimes get distracted. I have to think about barn safety for all the reindeer, and always about keeping hearth and home with Mrs. Claus at the North Pole protected,” says Santa. “Where we live and work in the North Pole, we’re definitely a more isolated environment. It’s sometimes a big worry, but that’s why we train.”
“And then he also has to think about what to do if there was a fire, or any other problems, with the sleigh,” Spinney says. Layering in the PFET course with military firefighters’ knowledge of preparing for in-flight fire emergencies is crucial: Santa makes use of CAF firefighter training opportunities at Royal Canadian Air Force airfields as often as possible.
A special feature at 14 Wing is 14 FES’ confined spaces training space, a concrete bunker of open shafts and tight tunnels the firefighters use to train for moving gear, rescued people and themselves through challenging conditions.
“The confined spaces site is great – what if Santa got stuck in a chimney?” Spinney says. Using rope work and hoists, and also building the knowledge and confidence to keep your nerve when things get tricky, are all skills firefighters – and Santa – need to continually work on.
Spinney has the advantage of working with Santa on professional training on his visits to 14 Wing, but he also enjoys the more casual relationship Santa maintains with volunteer fire departments across the land. Spinney, a volunteer in his spare time with the local Kingston District Fire Department, says members there really enjoy their opportunities to escort Santa through community parades and neighbourhood tours during the holiday season.
“While we do get to do that here on the wing, when Santa comes for the base holiday party,” Spinney says, “it’s such a short ride from the fire hall to the Annapolis Mess. That fun is over in a flash. When Santa’s is here at other times for all the joint training we do, it’s strictly business.”
Santa appreciates his long-time bonds with the CAF, as, really, his closest northerly neighbours.
“They train with me, get they get me out and keep me going safely.”
