Proper Ice Safety is a combination of knowledge and common sense.
Recently, Town of Arnprior Fire Chief Rick Desarmia recently took to social media outlining the various aspects to be concerned about, but with the multiplicity of factors that should govern our practise, we thought it best to break our discussion into little chunks.
Today, we’ll deal with conditions affecting the formation of ice, and the recommended surface thicknesses for the range of activities you may be planning.
Desarmia says there’s one rule to remember first off.
Not only do we have to be concerned about how the ice forms- but what’s underneath will impact how currents travel.
“Don’t go where you don’t know” might be a safety subtext to underscore.
The Arnprior Fire Chief says there are recommended thicknesses of ice that conform to the activity you’ve got planned.
Not everyone has an auger to bore into the ice to determine how deep it is- but you can ask someone who might know those answers.
Other than loud, precarious cracking, ice can’t talk- but it is colour coordinated; what the colour of the ice surface says about how to treat it, in our next feature.
By Rick Stow