Emergency Response

Emergency Response

Rapid Access in Times of Need

Immediate access during industrial and natural disasters is crucial. Every hour saved can protect countless plants, animals, and water sources. Our extensive inventory includes access matting, rig matting, and portable bridges. This allows us to quickly access remote areas in emergency response scenarios, such as pipeline breaks, train derailments, forest fires, landslides, and floods.

  • Largest Inventory in Canada: Our strategically located mats and portable bridges guarantee rapid access solutions.
  • Expert Crews: Our experienced crews are specifically trained in emergency access response, ensuring a high level of expertise.
  • Sophisticated Tracking Software: Through advanced tracking, trending, and analysis, we ensure comprehensive inventory management, enhancing our responsiveness.

Access Assurance

In emergency responses, securing access is critical. NMB recognizes this important first step. We collaborate with our customers to integrate our products and services into their emergency response plans, enhancing overall safety and efficiency.

Our extensive experience is evident through our involvement in addressing various emergencies like pipeline breaks, floods, and train derailments. NMB’s products and experienced crews provide vital access, prioritizing safety, efficiency, and environmental responsibility during cleanup.

24/7 Support

Northern Mat & Bridge (NMB) offers round-the-clock support to address weather and environmental challenges. Our fast transportation, installation, and servicing mitigate environmental impacts and potential damage. Count on our highly trained 24-hour dispatch team for urgent and efficient emergency response.

High Stock

We understand the urgency of access demands and keep a vast inventory of well-maintained mats in our fleet. Our advanced inventory and tracking system guarantees materials are ready for you when you need them.

Wood Access Mats

NMB offers a range of access mat products, each tailored to specific environmental conditions and workloads. Our extensive selection is available for rental, purchase, or attractive lease-to-own options.

Emergency Access Preparedness Plan:

In close collaboration with our clients, we develop customized emergency preparedness plans to ensure rapid access during critical times. Our commitment extends to planning for the future, ensuring comprehensive strategies that align with evolving needs and challenges.

Rapid Access in Times of Need

In the face of a catastrophic event, preparation is crucial for a successful response. Having a well-structured emergency response plan, whether for industrial or natural events, is vital for a swift and effective reaction. Preparedness offers several key advantages, including:

  • Avoiding Delays: Prearranged products and services ensure response efforts proceed without unnecessary delays.
  • Top Priority Access: Pre-established priority access to products (mats/bridges), crews, and equipment guarantees a prompt response.
  • Pre-Determined Rates: Setting rates in advance with yearly master service agreements ensures long-term cost management.
  • Liability Reduction: Properly trained workers reduce liabilities and enhance safety.
  • Budgeting for the Unexpected: An emergency response plan enables proactive resource budgeting for managing unforeseen challenges.

NMB is dedicated to environmental responsibility during industrial accidents and natural disasters. Our strategically located inventories ensure fast responses, offering better environmental protection, reducing public relations issues, and minimizing production downtime. We understand the profound impacts of industrial emergencies on safety, the environment, production, and your bottom line.

Minimizing the Industry’s Footprint

We’re dedicated to minimizing the industrial impact on sensitive lands, offering tailored access solutions for environmentally delicate areas while preserving the natural environment.

The Path to Environmental Responsibility

At NMB, our mission is to uphold the environment while conducting industrial activities. Our wide range of access products empowers clients to access remote and environmentally sensitive areas with minimal disruption to nature.

Benefits of working with NMB include:

  • Access to Sensitive Areas with Environmental Protection: Our solutions allow access to sensitive areas while safeguarding the environment and subsurface structures from potential damage by heavy equipment.
  • Increased Surface Area and Load Distribution: Our access products minimize soil degradation, including compaction, rutting, surface erosion, and mechanical mixing.
  • Protection for Vegetation and Regeneration: We provide protection for vegetation, enabling faster and more natural regeneration in affected areas.
  • Maintenance of Hydrology and Wetland Functions: When passing through areas like fens, bogs, and swamps, our solutions ensure the maintenance of hydrology and preservation of valuable wetland functions.

Access Mats, the Right Choice for All Conditions

Access mats are often referred to as mud mats, swamp mats, environmental mats or temporary roads. No matter the ground conditions, our durable mats are built to keep operations running smoothly and safely through even the harshest conditions in the toughest environments.

Read on to see how our mats tackle these challenging conditions.

Mud Mats

Historically, access mats were commonly known as mud mats. They serve the purpose of preventing heavy machinery and crews from becoming stuck in deep, thick, and impassable mud, which can be challenging to navigate and may result in equipment damage.

Mud mats establish heavy-duty paths over the mud, allowing crews and equipment to move safely and efficiently. Without them, the risk of machines getting stuck increase. This can lead to damage or delays, especially if additional equipment is required to extract machines. 

By laying down mud mats at the start of a project, you keep your machinery clean, dry, and productive—while also showing your team trust and respect for their safety and time. A safer, more efficient job site ensures you get the job done right, on time and on budget.

Job Site Challenge: 

  • Navigating heavy machinery and crews through deep, thick, impassable mud

Risk: 

  • Machinery getting stuck
  • Poor safety conditions for crews
  • Potential for project delays and increased costs

Solution:

  • Mud mats, or access mats, create heavy-duty paths over the mud, allowing equipment and crews to move quickly and safely without the risk of getting stuck

Result:

  • Project runs on time (no delays) and reduces risk of budget overruns

Swamp Mats

  - Preservation and Access

Sometimes critical jobs take place in sensitive and challenging environments like swamps and muskeg. These valuable ecosystems filter air and water, housing countless species. But, they’re also unstable, waterlogged, and extremely challenging for heavy machinery and crews to maneuver through safely and with limited damage to the environment.

This is where swamp mats, also known as access mats, come in. They provide vital protection for sensitive areas by creating a durable path overtop, stabilizing the ground and preventing heavy machinery and equipment from causing irreparable damage.

By integrating access mats at the beginning of a project, you provide critical environmental protections. The land will recover faster following the project, allowing for a swifter reclamation process.

Job Site Challenge: 

  • Job site is located in or over sensitive ecosystems like swamps and muskeg

Risk: 

  • Heavy machinery could cause irreparable damage.
  • Major environmental impacts and extended reclamation process
  • Unsafe operating conditions over unstable, water-logged ground

Solution:

  • Swamp mats, or access mats, stabilize the ground protecting sensitive land, resulting in less damage and safer, faster transport for crews and equipment

Result:

  • Limited environmental damage, less project delays
  • Faster reclamation process as the lands recover quicker

Environmental Mats

  - Treading Lightly

In today's operational landscape, industry and the environment are interconnected. It’s the responsibility of industries to minimize their environmental footprint while undertaking essential projects.

Environmental mats, also known as access mats, play an important role in limiting a job site's environmental footprint by creating a protective barrier over the ground. This is vital in minimizing soil disturbance and reducing the risk of compaction, rutting, and erosion as well as preventing cross-contamination. When access mats are not in place, there’s a major risk of industrial materials contaminating the earth. Even pathogens and invasive species can spread across or between job sites. 

By laying access mats at the beginning of a project, you protect the ground and the area’s natural life cycle. As a non-permanent structure, once the project is complete they’re quickly removed, allowing the land to return to its natural state faster. 

Job Site Challenge: 

  • Reduce environmental ground impacts of heavy machinery and industrial operations

Risk: 

  • Unnecessary damage to soil like compaction, rutting, and erosion
  • Cross-contamination of industrial materials, pathogens, and invasive species across the job site

Solution:

  • Environmental mats, or access mats, create a non-permanent, protective barrier over the ground
  • Quick installation and removal for limited impact

Result:

  • Less ground interference with the protective mat in place
  • Land returns to its original state faster, with fewer long-term impacts

Temporary Roads

  - Get Where You're Going

Certain projects require access to areas where permanent roads aren’t allowed, or land clearing is not an option. Temporary roads built from access mats are the ideal solution for these projects as they provide safe access for crews and heavy equipment while also minimizing the environmental impact of these projects.

Access mats, or temporary roads, create a smaller, less invasive footprint on the environment. They’re fast and easy to set up and take down, meaning projects are not delayed and site reclamation is faster. 

Job Site Challenge: 

  • Require access to areas where permanent roads are not allowed and land clearing is not an option

Risk: 

  • Changing ground conditions or impassable terrain could cause project delays which causes budget overages
  • Sensitive ecosystems may be damaged
  • Extended reclamation period

Solution:

  • Temporary roads, or access mats, laid to create safe access for crews and heavy equipment, as well as a protective barrier for the ground

Result:

  • Safe access for crews and heavy equipment even during changing weather conditions
  • Minimize environmental impact

Our Network

Northern Mat & Bridge (NMB) is proud to be Canada’s largest, fully integrated, turn-key access solutions company. More locations mean more available products with lower transportation costs!