Firefighters were called to smoke appearing in the north-central area of Estevan the evening on Aug. 15.
“There was some reported smoke and they couldn’t tell if it was coming from an old commercial occupancy or not,” said Fire Chief Dale Feser.
When crews arrived on the scene, they found an individual peacefully burning wood in the fire pit in their backyard.
“The wind direction was just taking it towards the old commercial occupancy. It was looking like it was on fire,” said Feser.
However, the investigation did yeild results. It turned out that tenant and homeowner didn’t have a permit for his fire pit.
“We want to remind everybody, all the citizens of Estevan, please, stop by the fire station and get a fire pit permit in order to be legal to burn and operate within the city,” said Feser.
The permit is only $10. When at the station, an individual will need to create a diagram, showing the fire pit location and will receive a summary of bylaws associated with burning in the city.
“That way everybody is burning as safe as possible within the city limits,” said Feser.
In other recent fire department news, the station received a 911 call for a tree that came into contact with power pole. The tree was smoking and on fire.
Fire crews took care of the situation, clearing off the area to prevent anybody from coming into the danger zone until SaskPower arrived. Specialists trimmed back the branches to keep the tree away from the power line.
“Should you observe this, call 911 immediately and try to prevent people from coming into the area just in case maybe a tree branch may fall after it’s been burnt off or a downed power line type of situation. So you want to protect anybody coming into the area until emergency services crews arrive on scene and we’ll take over and then wait for our partners at SaskPower to arrive on scene as well to isolate the area,” explained Feser.
On Aug. 18 at about 11 a.m. the Estevan Fire Rescue Service was also called to a two-vehicle collision in the south-central area of Estevan.
“There were injuries, fluids leaking and undeployed airbags,” said Feser. “We assisted with packaging a patient. One person was taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital via ground ambulance with undetermined injuries for assessment.”
Firefighters assisted with traffic control, dealt with fluid leaks caused by the collision and isolated the vehicles to zero energy.
“We always want to make sure that … we disconnect the batteries in vehicles, especially when there are some undeployed airbags and damage to the vehicle. So you want to make sure that our partners in the towing industry are going to be safe. You don’t want them to be reaching into the vehicle and there is already a tripped sensor and then you have an undeployed airbag deploy. And they typically deploy around 200 miles per hour, so that would cause significant injury and harm to the towing industry individuals as well,” said Feser.
Besides their main duties, firefighters gathered at the fire station for their regular training on Aug. 13.
“They were taking fire hose streams and fire foam fighting techniques. We’ve spent a better share of three hours doing Powerpoint presentation and how we apply foam in certain situations with Class A, Class B foam for wood fires as well as fires involving hydrocarbons and polar solvents,” said Feser.
Other relatively quiet days allowed the Estevan Fire Rescue Service to catch up on paperwork and complete the needed inspections.
