Couple of calls from concerned residents about masked men entering the Oliver Arena with full protective gear.

As a reporter I have attended several of this calls at night after an alarm goes off and the monitoring company gets the local fire department dispatched.

Wednesday we made inquiries with Carol Sheridan, Manager on the situation.

Key points
1. the arena roof needs to fixed – it is leaking…
2. ammonia detector replaced recently is set to a low threshold because of new provincial standards…

“Prior to the Fernie incident, fire alarms would go directly to OFD and ammonia/burglary alarms would go to the monitoring company first who would start our call out program to staff to respond and we would alert the Oliver Fire Department (OFD) after a basic investigation.

Following Fernie, we were asked by Technical Safety BC and WorkSafe BC to 1) lower the threshold of ammonia (PPM) picked up by the detector that would sound the alarm and 2) connect ammonia sensor to the fire panel so the OFD would be alerted at the same time as the monitoring company.  These measures were to ensure that in the case of a major ammonia leak the right people would be alerted and respond as soon as possible.  For this reason we have been working closely with the Fire Department to practice scenarios of responding to an ammonia leak at the arena.”

“The threshold is now set so low, however, that it can be triggered by the most minor changes in ammonia levels, so we have had lots of practice this winter!  Most of the issues we have in the past few weeks have stemmed from leaky arena roof shorting out equipment, annual maintenance being done on equipment and changes in pressure that caused alarms for levels that our staff are safely able to address without support from the OFD.  With the system shut down for the season now and the facility closed due to COVID-19 we are working through the best way to address the communication channel and prevent the OFD from having to respond to situations unnecessarily.  We really appreciate their prompt support and want to continue to be ready for the real thing if it ever happened, however don’t want to tax their operations or have people arriving to the scene thinking it’s just a drill.”

“The new detector was installed after the original was damaged by water earlier this year.
The detector is not faulty. Since the Society has implemented the WorkSafeBC guidelines for a lower threshold for ammonia alarm (25PPM) and attached this to the fire panel, it will increase the calls to the OFD compared to when staff were simply alerted by the monitoring company and would safely investigate minor changes in ammonia levels (0-200PPM) and request assistance from the fire department if the levels were over 200PPM.”

“Staff need to be diligent in phoning the monitoring company and the OFD whenever maintenance or inspections of the ammonia plant are taking place, ultimately putting the system on test, this will be our focus moving forward.”

“We can never turn the detector system off as long as there is ammonia held in the plant. When the ice comes out we shut down the compressors, drain the brine and confine the ammonia into sections of the system, however it is always there therefore we must continue to monitor the levels for the safety of staff and community.

So yes, complicated situation.”

Carol Sheridan – Manager
Oliver Parks and Recreation