Fire trucks could be seen by the Estevan Comprehensive School (ECS) Tuesday evening.
While emergency vehicles always grab the public’s attention, fortunately in this case there was no emergency occurring.
The Estevan Fire Rescue Service (EFRS) was working on their drills, which differ in cases when an emergency would indeed occur in such a big building as ECS.
“This type (of a building) is actually quite a bit different than your standard single-family dwelling house, just due to the size and the special fire suppression equipment that's installed and engineered into the building itself,” explained Estevan Fire Chief Dale Feser.
Fire crews participating in the training were coming in and catching the hydrants and then staging up on the front side. Then they had to run supply lines to the sprinkler systems, and then the aerial truck came in.
“We're doing some precision planning to find an optimal stage point for that truck. So that way, when we fly over the area on the platform, we can reach a good majority of the roof,” Feser said.
Once the aerial truck was deployed, the engine crews were running a supply line to provide water to the truck as well.
“We had the opportunity to do it a few times, and then we switch the crews out on each truck so that they are proficient in each skill set.”
The EFRS tries to run such drills at ECS at least once a year, so if an emergency does occur their skills are sharp and they know exactly what to do.
