THE City of North Vancouver's fire department has a new tool in their arsenal for responding to chemical emergencies.
Canexus Chemicals, which operates a chlorine plant in the Maplewood area of North Vancouver, donated a new electronic chlorine detector to the fire department's Hazardous Materials Response Team Oct. 5. The new handheld device offers a greater detection radius and a higher level of protection for both responders and the community, according to the release.
The city's Hazmat team responds to chemical emergencies across the North Shore, with 42 of 44 firefighters trained at the Technician Level for Hazmat operations.
Dan Pistilli, deputy fire chief for the city, said it would be used in major incidents and chlorine spills. "Chlorine leaks we deal with at some of the community centres, anything that if they have an issue with someone transporting chlorine, stuff like that. We could use this as a tool as well in the area of Canexus if we had an incident there," said Pistilli.
North Vancouver city fire crews responded to a chemical leak at the Canexus facility in March of this year that sent four people to hospital with non-life threatening injuries, but Pistilli said a tool like this wasn't needed in that case as the leak was quickly contained.
