The Estevan Fire Rescue Service (EFRS) received multiple calls over the past few days.
This week started off with a busy Monday.
In the morning, fire crews were called to a commercial fire alarm. Upon arrival, it was found that the dust triggered the alarm and no real emergency was occurring.
"Extremely dry conditions out there. So it's not unforeseen to see a few of these alarms whether people are tidying up and cleaning up around the shop environments," explained Estevan Fire Chief Dale Feser.
The next call came in at about 12:30 p.m. Firefighters responded to the report of a boiler fire that was occurring in the basement of a home in the south-central area. Occupants had safely evacuated the home before firefighters' arrival.
The smoke was coming from the vents of the boiler, so crews made entry into the home and found that it was contained to the boiler.
"We had SaskPower and SaskEnergy crews attend the scene, so we could isolate both power and natural gas to the boiler. It was contained to the boiler itself, and it was allowed to burn out. We monitored potential temperatures until they went back to a safe level. At that time SaskEnergy had tagged out the faulty equipment and the homeowner was responsible for contacting a plumbing and heating company to repair or replace that particular heating device," explained Feser.
As soon as fire crews returned to the station, they were called out again. This time a semi-trailer tire caught on fire east of the city. Firefighters established traffic control. The operator used the fire extinguisher upon emergency crews' arrival. However, when specialists used thermal imaging cameras, they were still picking up higher than normal temperatures on the brake drums, so they applied suppression streams to cool that down, thus succesfully extinguishing the fire.
Other calls came in at the end of last week.
On Friday at about 5 p.m., firefighters were called out to the report of a commercial fire alarm. The potential emergency was occurring on the northeast side of Estevan. Firefighters responded, however, the investigation conducted upon arrival showed that the system went off due to excess dust.
"They were vacuuming and a bunch of airborne dust had set the alarm into activation mode there. So crews were able to wrap things up and turn the scene back over to the cleaning staff," Feser said.
On Saturday at approximately 2.30 p.m., the EFRS responded to the report of a field fire that was occurring north of the city by Benson. Local farmers did a great job containing the fire, and firefighters were able to extinguish it without incident before it reached some freestanding crop.
"Luckily for us, it was actually in a field that was just recently harvested so there was just stubble that was in there. And we were able to keep it from spreading to the unharvested fields," Feser said.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Sunday also turned out fairly busy, as the EFRS members were first called to assist with an injured individual in the central area of the city. EMS arrived on scene and transported the patient to the hospital for further assessment.
At about 12:30 p.m. firefighters responded to a two-vehicle collision with injuries that occurred at the intersection of Petterson Drive and King Street. One individual was transported to hospital.
"There were substantial leaks as a result of the collision. Crews returned both vehicles to zero energy and cleaned up the fluid leaks, preventing a fire from occurring before turning it over to the towing company to retrieve the vehicles," Feser said.
Later on that evening, firefighters were called to a reported fire code violation that was occurring at a location at the north-central area of the city. Crews arrived on scene to find that there was indeed a fire code violation that was occurring as the emergency exit was blocked off from the exterior. They talked to the staff and the violation was corrected.
Fire crews were also involved with potential fire suppression duties on Friday and Saturday nights at the Estevan Motor Speedway.
