Open flame problem settled at Moss Park's overdose prevention site

The province, Toronto fire and volunteers at Moss Park's overdose prevention site have reached a solution to allow drug users to continue using open flames in a new heated tent set up last week, CBC Toronto has learned.

Ontario's Emergency Medical Assistance Team (EMAT) erected the military-grade tent on Thursday after it was requested by front-line workers to help keep the site functional through winter. 

On Saturday, however, EMAT informed volunteers that the use of open flames to either prepare drugs for injection or smoke a substance poses a danger to both drug users and health-care providers.

• Province pitches new tent as Moss Park site gears up for winter
• Ontario forms opioid emergency task force to address ongoing crisis

At the time, volunteers and activists said the crackdown on open flames rendered the heated tent "useless," and forced people using the service back out into the cold. 

Despite the setback, EMAT has drafted a revised safety plan that will "strike a balance between saving lives and keeping people safe," according to Toronto Fire Deputy Chief Jim Jessop, who added that the newly drafted agreement includes recommendations proposed by the department's fire prevention specialists.

The plan includes a provision that open flames will not be used near any combustible material, Jessop said. Similarly, if volunteers are using the compressed oxygen that's kept on the site for medical purposes, open flames must be a lit a minimum of three metres away. 

Any lighters used in the tent must be the disposable variety that go out if they are dropped on the ground, as opposed to refillable butane torches or similar flame sources that can be lit without direct contact. 

Toronto Fire will also provide at least one additional fire extinguisher to the tent, which, according to volunteers, already has one extinguisher. 

Further, EMAT will provide special training for a number of front-line volunteers. 

"With them agreeing to the recommendations, we really had no fire safety issue with them continuing on with their work," Jessop told CBC Toronto. 

Moss Park volunteer Sarah Ovens says the development is welcome news, adding that drug users will be able to start using the tent Tuesday night. 

"That plan that they are presenting us with includes a number of different safety precautions that are precautions that we were already taking anyway," she told CBC Toronto. Though it's not impossible to train all of the volunteers at once, they will be progressively brought up to speed on the plan as they rotate through shifts at the site, she explained. 

The insulated tent, equipped with a generator for the depths of winter, went up as an interim measure as the federal government considers a request from the province to operate the site indoors at the nearby Fred Victor Centre.

Ovens said the front-line volunteers were clear about what the tent would be used for right from the beginning. They were frustrated when the province then clamped down on open flames two days later.

It was just the latest instance of officials responding inadequately to the needs of the community, she said.

"This open flame thing came up on Saturday, so it was one thing that had to be solved. Now that it's solved, we definitely still don't feel like all of our needs have been met by what the province has given us so far," Ovens said, pointing out that the single winter-proofed tent is not big enough to accommodate the demand volunteers are seeing. 

"They've given us one tent, so it still leaves a lot of our folks out in the cold."