If you have been driving along Lakeshore Drive in Barrie over the last few days, you may have noticed fire trucks and crews gathered at Centennial Beach not far from the city’s downtown.
For the past three days, Barrie Fire and Emergency Service Acting Capt. Jason Sickel has been running their 2024 recruits through their paces, teaching them tactics to be utilized during rescues on Lake Simcoe in winter.
The four-day course teaches them to be proficient at conducting safe rescues of victims who may fall through the ice.
Firefighters could be seen wearing winter in-water gear while extracting each other from a hole in the ice not far out from shore on Thursday morning.
The video below shows just one of the many ways Barrie Fire personnel execute water rescues.