ESTEVAN — Members of the Estevan Fire Rescue Service had to respond to a number of calls last week.
On Sept. 20, just before 3 p.m., fire crews were dispatched to a transformer power pole fire on the southwest side of the city. Crews responded and secured the area until SaskPower arrived and shut down the power. Then SaskPower and fire crews confirmed the power pole fire was extinguished, and the scene was turned over to SaskPower to do repairs.
The next call for the EFRS came in at about 5 p.m., when firefighters were dispatched to a scene south of Estevan to battle a grass fire.
"They were on scene for a couple of hours out there, contained the fire and extinguished it," Estevan Fire Chief Rick Davies said. "No losses, no injuries. It was contained to the one area that was burning and there were no structures or anything in the immediate area."
As of Monday morning, southeast Saskatchewan was in a high fire risk index. Davies noted that as vegetation starts drying out, and the temperatures still rise during the day, there is a possibility of wildland fires, so farmers working in the fields, as well as the public, should exercise caution.
"We always advise people to be cautious. Fire will burn. We're getting into that time with cold weather at night and we start to get the frost, so the vegetation dies off, and it still warms up for the day. So, we have the potential to have bigger fires," Davies said. "I don't think it's anything to be extremely, extremely crazy careful about right at the moment. But anyone working in the field or anything like that should be cautious for sure."
On Sept. 23 at about 4:30 p.m., fire crews were dispatched to central Estevan for a commercial fire alarm. They responded, determined it was cooking related, ensured the building was ventilated enough to reset the fire alarm panel, which they did, and then returned to the station.
At about 8 p.m., another fire alarm went off, this time in a residence. It appeared to be a cooking-related incident as well, so firefighters confirmed that their assistance wasn't required and stood down.
Just before 10 a.m. on Sept 25, a residential fire alarm went off on the west side of the city. Fire crews responded and confirmed it was false, so they stood down.
