Burn demonstrations at Laurier teach students about fire safety
To teach students about fire safety and emergency procedures, Waterloo Fire Rescue held two fire demonstrations at Wilfrid Laurier's Northdale campus parking lot.
Waterloo Fire Rescue led a room burn demonstration and a kitchen fire demonstration
Carmen Ponciano · CBC News ·
Within minutes, flames overtook the makeshift dorm room. "Within three minutes, if you're not out of this, you're not going to survive," said public education officer John Percy. (Carmen Ponciano/CBC)
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Thick black smoke could be seen from Hickory Street in Waterloo Tuesday night as Wilfrid Laurier University and Waterloo Fire Rescue held two fire demonstrations at the university's Northdale campus parking lot.
Firefighters demonstrated a bedroom fire and a kitchen fire scenario to teach students about fire safety and emergency procedures.
Waterloo Fire Rescue demonstrated how quickly smoke can overwhelm someone caught in a room on fire. A trickle of white smoke became thick and black before engulfing the room. (Carmen Ponciano/CBC)"The pretense behind all this is that we have 3,400 first year Laurier students," John Percy, public education officer for Waterloo Fire Rescue, told CBC News.
"What we are trying to demonstrate is how quickly a fire burns."
Fire crews built rooms made of typical residential construction materials, filled it with bedroom furniture and placed a working fire alarm inside for the room burn demonstration.
Hundreds of first-year students, and their residence dons, watched as Waterloo Fire Rescue set a dorm room and a kitchen on fire Tuesday night. (Carmen Ponciano/CBC)
As it burned, fire crews talked about how quickly a fire can spread and the importance of having a working fire alarm and evacuation plan.
Crews also demonstrated what a kitchen fire looks like, in Waterloo Fire Rescue's kitchen fire trailer, and demonstrated how to properly extinguish a grease fire.
