The geography may be vastly different and the water supply short but training South American firefighters how to battle blazes safely is the unifying cause of a group co-founded by a Coquitlam fire inspector.
This week, Kim Saulnier gave a presentation to Coquitlam's council-in-committee about the volunteer work she and dozens of others do with the Fire Rescue International Training Association (FRITA).
Saulnier recently returned from a three-week trip to Panama, where she and graduates of the Justice Institute of BC helped train firefighters on auto extrication, wildland fires and first aid, among other things.
"They're so enthusiastic and eager for more training," said Saulnier, a Tri-City resident who has been in the fire service for 18 years. "There's a really great mutual respect there. We see sometimes not the best kind of equipment available but the ingenuity they have is pretty impressive.
"And we walk away learning something, too," she said.
Saulnier, who spoke to Coquitlam council along with a FRITA co-founder, Vancouver Fire Department Capt. Brian Hutchinson, started the organization after working with Firefighters Without Borders. While that association was good at securing firefighting gear for Third World countries, it lacked the resources to train firefighters. That's when Saulnier and others stepped in to fill the void.
Today, FRITA sends volunteer teams three times a year to South American countries such as Panama, El Salvador, Belize, Peru and Colombia; next year, it hopes to offer training to departments in Chile.
Among the Coquitlam firefighters who have joined in the cause are Chris Driessen, Chad Buch, Kyle Doerksen, Mike Richen, Kai Jones and Grant Streeter as well as retired assistant chief Scott McKenzie.
Saulnier, who has been deployed six times to El Salvador and Panama, said FRITA teams usually travel from Canada on a Friday, spend the weekend preparing, touring and team building before delivering their training program for the next five days.
Key to their humanitarian efforts is teaching the "bomberos" how to stay safe on the job, she said.
