ARA Safety Equips Alberta Fire Department With Powerful New Fire Interruption Technology

RED DEER, AB--(Marketwire - September 17, 2008) - To help Red Deer Emergency Services supplement their efforts in protecting their communities, families and homes, ARA Safety, an emerging leader in life safety, announced today that it will provide five fire stations throughout Red Deer, Alberta, with seven FIT-5 devices.

The FIT-5 is a powerful new fire knockdown tool that the department expects will be effective in helping area fire fighters control fires to save lives and to reduce the more than $200 million in fire-related property damages that Red Deer experiences each year.

The six-month program is the first large-scale and fully-integrated trial by a professional fire department in North America. It will serve as a case study to showcase the FIT-5's effectiveness in lessening fire-related losses and illustrate how it can provide critical support to fire departments looking for a new way to approach fighting fires.

On Sept. 16, 20 firefighters from Red Deer Emergency Services participated in a live product testing and training session. The department expressed their excitement in participating to see first-hand why the FIT-5 is being credited with helping firefighters across North America suppress structure fires safely and efficiently while reducing human and financial losses.

"In Tuesday morning's FIT-5 demonstration, we observed a new tool that will effectively buy our crew time when fighting fire," said Red Deer Platoon Chief Steve Tinordi. "Whether it's one minute, two minutes or five, any piece of equipment or tool that allows our firefighters to do their jobs more safely and efficiently is good news for our department and for the communities and lives we're assigned to protect."

Commercial Solutions (CSI), ARA Safety's exclusive FIT-5 distributor in Canada, will fully support the trial program, replacing each FIT-5 as it is deployed. The company looks forward to working with Red Deer in reducing fire loss throughout the local community.

"Firefighters must have the right tools at the right time to effectively protect their communities," said Michael Gardiner, director of marketing, ARA Safety. "We commend Red Deer in their efforts to capitalize on critical new technologies to continue as one of Canada's thought leaders in fire safety."

About ARA Safety

ARA Safety is a world leader in innovative fire and life safety technology. ARA Safety's revolutionary Fire Interruption Technology (FIT) fire knock down tool is saving lives and reducing property loss in cities and towns across North America.

ARA Safety's fire and life safety technologies also include the Zero Combustion line of fire proof sprays, paints and coatings, and its world leading line of Photoluminescent products. ARA Safety's technologies have been used by NASA, the Pentagon, the United States Military and are featured prominently on the Vancouver Shangri-La. ARA Safety Inc. is based in Vancouver, Canada. To learn more about ARA Safety visit, www.arasafety.com.

About Commercial Solutions

Headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, Commercial is one of Canada's leading independent industrial distributors with 37 Services Centres and approximately 350 employees located across Canada. Commercial offers more than 160,000 items critical to maintenance repair and operations (MRO) and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) customers. The Company represents 450 leading manufacturers and serves over 11,000 customer accounts within a broad cross-section of industries, including oil and gas, forestry, food processing, chemical processing, mining and aggregate, utilities, agriculture and construction Commercial trades under the symbol "CSA" on the Toronto Stock Exchange. For further information on the Company, please visit www.commercialsolutions.ca and for detailed financial information visit www.sedar.com.

Contact Information: For editorial information: Michael Gardiner ARA Safety mgardiner@arasafety.com (778) 836-2108 For editorial information: Lisa Stern GolinHarris lstern@golinharris.com (312) 729-4385