ESTEVAN - The Estevan Fire Rescue Service remained busy during the first eight months of the year, however, the number of calls for service went down slightly in 2021 in comparison to 2020.
Fire Chief Dale Feser said they received 127 calls for service through the end of August, not including the public engagement and training activities. In 2020, they had 142 calls over the same period.
"We're a little bit down on our call volume, but that's a good thing," Feser said.
From January to August of this year, the fire department responded to 53 fire-related calls, including equipment fires, building fires, brush fires and grass fires. Feser said it's a little bit below average that they normally see. He added that last year's harvest season was more active for the fire department, and he praised the farmers for taking extra steps to prevent fires.
"We are really thankful to the ranching and farming community. They're just being very, very proactive and having extinguishers mounted on their vehicles. They're doing very, very good with the preventative maintenance aspect, making sure that the machines are properly cleaned out, properly maintained, greased to prevent any overheating and whatnot," Feser said.
There still were several calls for actual fires during harvest this year as no one is immune from accidents. And Feser also thanked the local people for all their help in containing and battling those fires.
In the first eight months of the year, firefighters were also called to 38 fire alarms, which include legitimate fire alarms and cooking-related issues and other false alarms. They also responded to 20 motor vehicle collisions, which is a bit down from last year. There were 15 calls related to gas leaks and one fuel leak call, which is up from nine hazardous conditions calls the fire department responded to in eight months in 2020.
Actual fires as well as fire alarms were the main calls for the EFRS. Feser pointed out that many alarms went off due to aging detection devices or dead batteries, and much like cooking-related calls, these were preventable.
He added that they tend to see more calls come in during particular seasons.
"With the fall coming up here, when temperatures start to drop, furnaces start to run a little bit, and that's when we start seeing those carbon monoxide calls come in,” said Feser.
"So we want to just extend a little bit of a precautionary note out to the public. It's a great time to make sure that your carbon monoxide alarms are working. Get your heating and equipment serviced, get the dust cleaned out and make sure that they're properly working," Feser advised.
The fire department puts a lot of effort into educating the public on being cautious when cooking, ensuring their smoke and carbon monoxide alarms are up to date and working properly as well as having homeowners' names as the first point of contact for monitoring agencies.
"Definitely our aim is public education, … getting the message out there and educating the public so that way they can properly protect themselves and do things in a safer manner," Feser said.
They also held 59 training sessions and other activities.
