DRUG LABS POSE BIG RISK FOR EMERGENCY RESPONDERS

It's an emergency and firefighters race to the scene of a house fire
or a car crash expecting to do the jobs they are trained to do - put
out fires and help save lives.

The reality of what they will find today, however, is much more
sinister.

That structure fire, or even the crashed car, could be putting
firefighters as the first responders in the midst of deadly,
clandestine drug labs or boxed labs, the transportable form turning up
in vehicle trunks and pickups in Ontario.

"It could be a death trap and you won't even know it," OPP Detective
Constable Dave Glass told close to 100 firefighters from 13 of 15
Leeds and Grenville departments here Monday night. "They can kill you
immediately or years later."

Glass, of the Drug Enforcement Section (Kingston Unit) Investigation
Bureau, told firefighters they may think they are going to a routine
call. And it may look routine once they arrive. A simple shed fire, a
person who has collapsed. The firefighter may be thinking heart attack
and be focused on the victim when the downed man may have been
overcome with noxious fumes from a meth lab.

"It's something I can't stress enough," Glass said while pointing to
the word "routine" and indicating it could be the call that could kill
or debilitate.

"Look for indications that you may be in a lab, and as soon as you
think you're in a lab, get out."

When asked how many labs are out there in the province, Glass said he
couldn't even begin to guess. One number he did know, however, was for
every unit of a drug made there are six units of toxic sledge left
behind.

"All you need is water and electricity," Glass said while outlining
the basics required for an illegal drug-making operation. Extraction
conversion, tableting, synthesis, multiple process and boxed labs are
being found in locations throughout Ontario and Canada.

A lab could exist in an outbuilding equipped with a generator and
located by a stream. It could be that innocuous. Self-storage units
are also used and then abandoned, but the toxic sludge is left behind.

There are indicators for those who know what to look for, even from a
distance.

In one slide of his presentation, Glass pointed out the yellowed
windows of one apartment in a high rise.

For the trained eye, that apartment stands out. The fumes from drug
labs can melt the varnish off furniture and can permeate the walls.
Some buildings take months to decontaminate or have to be destroyed.

Drug labs, as Glass hammered home, can be hidden anywhere and they
pose serious risks to firefighters on the front line.

"It's not a Toronto problem. It's not an Ottawa problem. It's
everywhere," Glass said, noting one case of a crack house in
Brockville where five people, all under the age of 20, lived.

Of the items confiscated from the scene was a list of the equipment
and the ingredients needed, including ammonia, to get a lab up and
operating.

Some operations will steal anhydrous ammonia, a farm fertilizer. Often
they store it in "barbecue" tanks.

A clear indicator a propane tank is being used to store something
other than propane is how the copper on the top turns blue from the
corrosion.

"When you see that, you know you have a lab," Glass
said.

Say you come across a kitchen fire and you see coffee filters with
white or pink sledge in them. That is also likely a clandestine drug
lab, he said.

Glass also outlined what to watch for with both indoor and outdoor
grow-ops. "This neck of the woods is famous for dope," Glass said.

With indoor marijuana operations, the owners often bypass some of
their electricity to avoid detection.

Police officers have come across energized ground outside of homes
containing grow operations because criminals don't care about building
codes.

Not only is there the possibility of electrocution, but firefighters
entering a house that is a grow operation may have their equipment
tangled in haphazardly-installed wires. Glass cited cases of
firefighters dying because they could not free themselves. Often there
are false walls and other hindrances leaving firefighters vulnerable
to entrapment, particularly if the house is ablaze and visibility is
nil.

There are obvious indicators for labs and some not so obvious, which
is why all emergency response personnel need to know a number of signs
to look for, Glass said. What is clear is police and fire departments
need to work together.

Ernie Yakiwchuk, a retired firefighter who is now the fire protection
adviser with the Community Safety Enhancement Unit of the Ontario Fire
Marshal's office, said marijuana grow operations and clandestine drug
labs are not just a police problem. They pose social and economic
issues, environmental hazards, fires and explosions that kill and
destroy property.

"That's why we're involved," said Yakiwchuk.

He said a majority of fire departments don't have the full technical
training required to respond to fires and noxious fumes caused by drug
labs.

For example, many don't have portable air-quality testing equipment.
While these issues need to be addressed, Yakiwchuk said it is
important right now for fire departments to be clear with law
enforcement about the training they do or don't have. It could save
lives.

The session by Glass and Yakiwchuk was hosted by the
Elizabethtown-Kitley Fire Department and was co-ordinated by Captain
Al Merkley and Fire Chief Jim Donovan.

"The interest is there, people are thirsty for it," said
Merkley.

"I know I've been to three or four grow-ops in the townships in the
last five years," added Merkley. He felt firefighters needed to be
updated because a session of this kind hasn't been held in this area
for at least five years.

"We don't get this specific (training in drug operations)," said
Donovan of why they asked Glass and Yakiwchuk to speak. "You just
don't rush in anymore. It's a new generation and a new world."

Both Merkley and Donovan were overwhelmed with the positive response
to the session and said area fire departments were well
represented.

Township of Leeds and Thousand Islands Chief Fire Prevention Officer
Wayne Shields attended, despite spending most of the day with a crew
fighting grass fires. Between 60 to 75 acres burned due to dry
conditions, he said.