The fire response at Meadowbrook Apartments did not go smoothly.
Residents had to contend with a sudden evacuation into the cold night of New Year's Day, and more than an hour of shivering in the elements. Firefighters had to contend with the usual chaos of an incident but also an obstacle the public doesn't typically associate with emergency response: hostility.
The alarm sounded at 8:06 p.m., calling for firefighters to rush to the complex at Ospika Boulevard and 1st Avenue. Fire Hall No. 2 is located six minutes from there. According to the city's dispatch logs, the first firefighters arrived at 8:12 but had trouble getting to the blaze.
"Some individuals were being obstructive to the point of one vehicle blocking the path of the first arriving fire truck even after the driver was made aware that an incident was in progress," said Prince George Fire Rescue Service chief John Lane.
The driver gave the middle finger to the attending firefighters when they insisted he clear the way.
Firefighters also had to deal with a resident who was insistent that someone go back inside the burning building to locate his cat.
Adding to the emotion of the incident, "there was someone, and I don't know the details, that required the attention of the RCMP. That individual was removed from the scene by police," Lane said.
"Some people are idiots," said Lyle Adams, the resident property manager of the Meadowbrook complex.
One witness to the events wondered, in a call to The Citizen, why the firefighters that night seemed edgy, even surly, but Adams and others involved told a different story. Adams added that the RCMP had been at the complex on two other occasions earlier the same day to make arrests, and the aftereffects of New Year's Eve were palpable among some of the residents.
Lane said his inquiries found no misconduct among the firefighters and wondered if the caller had perhaps mistook the exchanges with the hostile residents, or perhaps misinterpreted the verbal shorthand firefighters use with each other in the heat of an incident.
Those who contacted The Citizen who had to stand on the street that night did agree on one issue. It felt like it took too long for the city to bring a bus so they had somewhere out of the elements to take shelter.
Many were wearing only thin layers of clothes.
According to the dispatch logs, Lane first called for a city bus at 8:32 p.m. None arrived until 9:41 p.m. Considering the statutory holiday was in effect, said Lane, this was not an undue wait.
Brad Beckett, the City of Prince George's manager of Recreation and Cultural Services, was at the fire to help co-ordinate the emergency social services response and agreed that the bus was called in as quickly as could be expected during a time of tight holiday staffing. He, too, felt the demeanour of the firefighters was appropriately focused on public safety and extinguishing the flames.
Lane and Beckett said separately that all victims of the fire had access to blankets and were welcome inside the attending vehicles to warm up in there, if they had no shelter.
Lane added that the odd encounters were not all that unusual for a firefighting crew, strange as that may seem to a public not accustomed to daily emergencies.
"These events are extremely upsetting, and people under duress will sometimes react in unpredictable ways, uncharacteristic ways, that they themselves may not even remember later," he said. "It's stress, it causes all kinds of strong emotions, but we have a job to do, we have to put out a fire and that can't be underestimated."
