The Vancouver fire department wants you to know how to help rescue others during a natural disaster, while staying safe.

Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services is working on plans to train city of Vancouver residents and organize them to help first responders with rescues — or even to carry out rescues themselves — without getting hurt.

The program — the Neighbourhood Emergency Assistance Team (NEAT) — was prompted by earthquakes outside Canada, including the major earthquake that devastated Mexico City in 1985.

Untrained citizens rescued more 800 people after the Mexico City quake in 1985. “But approximately 100 people perished trying to rescue other citizens,” said Capt. Ron Ewert, who heads the department’s disaster and emergency planning office.

“We want to avoid that. And I think to avoid that we need to implement some kind of training and education piece for as many citizens in Vancouver as we can, and the surrounding areas for that matter.”

Ewert added that Saturday’s earthquake near Haida Gwaii and superstorm Sandy on the U.S. east coast make the initiative even more timely.

Recently, department officials visited Christchurch, New Zealand, where an earthquake struck in 2011, killing 185 people.

“The one thing that really stood out there, and in other areas, was the fact that there’s going to be a huge number of volunteers that are going to come out and want to help,” Ewert said.

“If these volunteers take the NEAT training, which is an 18-hour program, it will at least give them the tools to know what professional responders do and what’s expected of them.”

The program will be taught by firefighters at the city’s firefighting training centre in Strathcona or a fire hall with a hands-on practice area, Ewert said.

The curriculum is still being developed, but besides basic rescue information and how to put out small fires, it will concentrate on teaching skills that will free up firefighters to concentrate on rescues during a disaster. That will likely include first aid, operating radio equipment, traffic control and operating Vancouver’s dedicated fire protection system. That system of earthquake-resistant pipes and pumping stations is designed to supply ocean water for firefighting even if the regular water system is badly damaged.

“We’re going to try to keep it as safe as possible but still make it realistic. There may very well be fire, but at no point are we going to put any of these people in harm’s way. I can’t stress that enough,” he said.

“The one thing I really hated when I was younger taking a first aid course was when somebody was at the top of the room, lecturing to me all day long, ‘PowerPointing’ me to death,” he added, saying NEAT would emphasize hands-on learning.

Ewert said his experience battling the Kelowna forest fires that destroyed 330 homes in 2003 also served as inspiration for the initiative. “I saw those people and I saw that they wanted to help out, but a lot of people didn’t have the tools or the training and education that they needed.”