A workplace incident in southeast Estevan Monday morning resulted in fires, explosions and a long day for local first responders.
Members of the Estevan Fire Rescue Service were notified just before 10 a.m. of a titanium tank fire at the Regens Metals yard on Perkins Street.
The fire department, the Estevan Police Service, Estevan RCMP, Estevan Emergency Medical Services, Occupational Health and Safety officials and conservation officers were dispatched.
When they arrived on the scene, they found a fire was occurring, and they learned that explosions had occurred shortly before they arrived.
They also learned there were several unaccounted for workers at the scene. Those employees were found at the east end of the property, so they were told to go to the muster site and report.
“During this process, one worker was observed that he looked like he had suffered some burns to the face area, so he was directed to go to EMS,” said Feser.
The individual was transported to hospital for assessment and treatment, and was released about an hour later.
None of the other workers were injured, Feser said.
The fire chief pointed out their first priority was safety for all involved, and making sure everyone is accounted for. With the explosions, it created unknown hazards at the building, including concerns of whether another explosion would occur, or if there were compressed gas cylinders in close proximity that might explode.
“We have to make sure that adequate safety measures are taken into consideration, and there is adequate water for suppression efforts,” he said.
It was a fortunate situation that just one person suffered minor injuries.
“I don’t think we could have asked for a better situation considering the events that unfolded this morning,” said Feser.
Connor Barnstable, who works at Precision Machining about 200 yards to the west of Regens Metals, filmed two of the explosions that occurred before fire crews arrived and posted them to his Facebook page. As of Tuesday morning, it had been shared more than 4,500 times.
He said one of his managers saw smoke and flames coming from the Regens building, so Barnstable stopped to take a look.
“I saw a bunch of smoke coming from over the top of the one building,” said Barnstable.
He went outside to see if the fire was growing. He wasn’t expecting to see explosions, but after he started filming, two big ones occurred that everybody felt.
“It knocked a bunch of stuff off our walls in our shop,” said Barnstable. “It shook our shop pretty good twice or three times.”
There had also been a smaller explosion before he started filming.
Emergency crews had already been called when the explosions occurred, he said.
Feser noted the Regens Metals building suffered very minimal damage, as the explosion and fire occurred at the exterior of the building. But an unoccupied building to the north suffered some significant damage.
“Part of the explosion had a rain-down effect of burning materials, which started some property on fire,” said Feser.
At one point there were three major fires going: one at the explosion site, one at the unoccupied building and a third at a vehicle. A worker moved the vehicle from inside the fence compound to park it on the exterior.
The cause of the fire and explosions is still under investigation, and several agencies are involved. The Ministry of Environment was at the scene because the building was close to a drainage ditch, and they want to ensure nothing was contaminated and entering the drainage system.
“We didn’t have to do too much damming and diking. It was contained to the property itself and saturated into the ground,” said Feser.
Occupational Health and Safety and Workers’ Compensation have been checking to see if there are any unsafe work acts that contributed to the explosion and fire.
“We know that there was a hot works that was occurring that set some materials on fire,” said Feser.
The Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency came down as well to assist with the investigation.
The fires and explosions resulted in a cloud of smoke that blanketed much of Estevan for about an hour Monday morning.
The explosion was heard and felt by much of the city, including those on the west edge of the community, several kilometres away.
A portion of Perkins Street east of Kensington Avenue was closed for several hours while emergency crews responded to the fires. The firefighters didn’t return return to the fire hall until around 4:30 p.m. Monday.
