Community Safety Initiative Award
Providing a safe community is not always just up to first responder agencies.
Often, help comes from other sources. And in Richmond, Lafarge, the largest diversified supplier of construction materials in the United States and Canada, is playing a significant role which earned it this year’s Community Safety Initiative Award of the Year.
When Richmond Fire Rescue was looking for an outdoor training centre to conduct its fire and rescue exercises outside of an urban residential setting, Lafarge stepped up and leased approximately 1.6 acres of land adjacent to its cement plant in east Richmond.
Richmond Fire-Rescue responds to many types of fire and rescue emergencies that often bring their own unique twists and challenges, such as confined space and high angle rescues. Training exercises, both small and large scale, are key to Richmond Fire-Rescue’s success.
And Lafarge is covering significant expenses related to the provision and preparation related to this unique initiative.
“We’re not first responders, so we are very honoured to share this evening,” said Pascal Bouchard, plant manager at Lafarge.
“We’ve been in this community for almost 60 years and we’ve tried throughout that time to give back to the community, and this is probably one of our best projects that we’ve had,” Bouchard said. “We’re very happy to contribute and help Richmond Fire Rescue in their future efforts to train their staff.”
