Blackpool Fire Rescue continues to find practical solutions to potential road rescue challenges, according to fire chief, Mike Savage. The most recent acquisition is the purchase of emergency electric vehicle safety plugs which arrived on Feb. 8 for both the Blackpool and Little Fort fire halls.
“If you have a motor vehicle accident that involves an electric vehicle you can activate the plug, plug it into an electric vehicle and it will trick the system into thinking it’s being charged,” said Savage of the plugs. “Once this has been done the system goes into ‘shut down mode,’ placing the vehicle in park. If someone is trapped inside we can disable the vehicle and get to work on the people a lot quicker than trying to find wires to cut.”
The chief says firefighters will be watching a training video and doing some practical training in the use of the EV safety plugs.
“The video is about eight minutes in length and features three types of electric vehicles; a Tesla, a Rivian and a Ford Lightning as they test the safety plugs on each. Even as they put the plug into the vehicle as it starts to move it automatically stops it.”
Savage feels all fire departments should have these as essential safety tools and they have suggested this to various levels of government when discussing funding needs.
The two local fire halls in Blackpool and Little Fort budgeted for the first two units purchased that cost approximately $1,600 each.
“It’s one of those things you have to look at now. Equipment is changing, vehicles are changing so we have to keep up with the times. These plugs are made to plug into anything that is North American and there is a special adapter that goes on the other end specifically for Teslas. There are other fire departments in the province that now have these and we looked at Langford prior to purchasing ours.”
Savage points out the fact that there are local electric vehicles in use in the valley and more charging stations being installed in the North Thompson for travellers so first responders need to be prepared as new challenges arise.
