Staff cadet honoured after detecting smoke-filled tent

Staff Cadet Sgt. Corrie Firth, 16, of Whitehorse, was presented with the Commanding Officer's Commendation at the Whitehorse Cadet Summer Training Centre last Thursday.

Staff Cadet Sgt. Corrie Firth, 16, of Whitehorse, was presented with the Commanding Officer’s Commendation at the Whitehorse Cadet Summer Training Centre last Thursday.

She was honoured for her “diligence, quick reaction and fortitude upon the observation of smoke in a staff cadet tent which resulted in three staff cadets being saved from a dangerous situation on July 26,” the centre said in a statement this week.

Firth is a section sergeant in the operations platoon at the centre, responsible for six junior staff cadets.

She was making rounds of the camp early in the morning when she smelled smoke coming from one of the staff cadet tents.

When she entered to investigate, she saw that a blanket and stuffed animal had fallen onto a portable heater inside the tent and were smoldering, filling the tent with smoke.

“When I looked inside the tent and saw smoke, I was a bit scared but I knew I had to fix the problem,” she said. “I didn’t feel anything else; I just knew what was right.”

Firth quickly removed the heater and other items from the tent, awakened the three staff cadets in the tent, cleared the smoke from the tent, and stayed up with them to make sure they were all right.

Asked if she thinks of herself as a heroine, Firth said, “No, it was just the right thing to do. I’m just happy that my friends are OK.”

Firth credits her leadership and decision-making to the skills she has learned through the cadet program.

She said her favourite part of the cadet program is the opportunity to lead and develop her leadership skills. She is also being nominated for a number of other awards.

The cadet program is a community-based youth program which aims to develop citizenship, leadership, and physical fitness in Canada’s youth through a set of fun, challenging, well-organized, and safe activities.

The centre trains about 350 cadets from across Canada and the U.K. during the six-week summer training program.