The Ottawa Fire Service is finding new ways to connect with kids through the isolation of pandemic lockdowns.

The service released two virtual station tours on YouTube at the beginning of the month, which gave parents and kids a look into Stations 53 and 73, in Orleans and Vars respectively. Shortly after, the service released French-language versions of the same videos.

According to Public Information Officer Nicholas DeFazio, the videos were received “incredibly well” by parents, teachers and children. He says the service wanted to release the videos as soon as possible so they could bring some good news to the community. Now, DeFazio says the service is planning on continuing the virtual tour series with additional videos.

“Teachers were tweeting at us, parents were tweeting at us, parents were sending us pictures of kids watching them over and over,” says DeFazio. “So we were super happy with the results. And when something's that successful, obviously we want to keep it going.”

The initial videos demonstrated general daily operations and showed off equipment such as various types of trucks and the different sizes of hose required to fight fires. 

But the Ottawa Fire Service does a lot more than fight fires. DeFazio says going forward, future videos will educate viewers about the Ottawa Fire Service’s special operations teams, including those who specialize in extrication and search and rescue.

“We have incredible specialty teams that are always training, and one of them is our extrication teams,” says DeFazio. “So we have three stations that are staffed with heavy rescue equipment. And you'll see the jaws of life in the video, so if someone's trapped inside their car after a motor vehicle accident, these are the types of equipment we use to get them out.” 

DeFazio says station tours have been around as long as the Ottawa Fire Service has, but the virtual tours are the first they have been able to conduct in the two years since the pandemic began. According to DeFazio, the service has always played a vital role in educating kids and parents alike about fire safety, which is essential in fire prevention.

In 2020, the Ottawa Fire Service reported a total of nine fire-related deaths over the course of the year—more annual fire-related deaths than the service had seen in 20 years.

The Ottawa Fire Service is investigating a mid-January fire which left six people dead and four injured. Photo by Ottawa Fire Service.

According to Statistics Canada, over half of fires in Ontario occur in residential structures. The Ottawa Fire Service’s Twitter account has so far reported over a dozen fires in the first month of 2022, the majority of them in residential homes. However, the year’s most devastating fire to-date occurred on Jan. 13, when an explosion and resulting fire killed six people at Eastway Tank, Pump & Meter Ltd.—a tanker truck manufacturing facility in Nepean.

In a statement on Twitter, the Office of the Fire Marshal said Friday that the investigation into "the origin, cause and circumstance” of the fire is still ongoing.

DeFazio points out that fire prevention is key to helping people avoid serious injury and even death. He says it’s never too early for kids to begin learning how to stop fires before they start.

“You want to start as young as possible with the more basic fire safety messages, such as knowing your escape plan, practicing it, where you will meet outside if there is a fire,” says DeFazio. “You can start teaching kids how to call 911. These types of fire safety messages are the perfect ones that we can do when they come in for the station tours.”

DeFazio says adults can also benefit from learning about fire safety, as there are many misconceptions about how to handle common household dangers, such as carbon monoxide leaks.

The Ottawa Fire Service is planning to release the next video in the series in the near future.

To learn more about the Ottawa Fire Service, visit their Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages.