Over 200 volunteer firefighters from throughout Saskatchewan will be descending on Estevan this weekend.
The Estevan Fire Rescue Service is playing host to the Saskatchewan Volunteer Firefighters Association's Spring Fire School and Trade Show, which runs from Friday to Sunday.
Deputy fire Chief Dale Feser said the event will include 16 different courses for firefighters at locations in and around Estevan. There will also be a trade show at the Civic Auditorium on each day of the school.
"This will probably be one of the larger ones that the SVFA will hold as far as attendance. Everybody likes to come to Estevan. They know they have a good time down here and they like to play hard," he said. "The last time we hosted was five years ago. They try to bump it around the province; it goes all over the place, you get some smaller communities and some of the larger communities host it as well.
"It's a very good training course, you get some top notch instruction."
Feser said the courses being offered to the estimated 222 firefighters expected to be in Estevan are wide ranging. They include basic entry-level courses where the volunteers are trained in fire behaviour, basic building construction and breathing apparatuses to more advanced courses that deal with how to extricate people from newer, more modern vehicles.
"As you can well understand, some of these new vehicles have high strength structural steels and (firefighters) are not able to cut people out," Feser said. "We have to buy some beefed up models to provide a little more force when you are prying into some of those vehicles."
Feser added there is also a school bus extrication class.
"Typically a school bus isn't designed anywhere near what a car is like. The danger of entrapment is actually greater. So the guys will be cutting that all apart and learning the intricacies of how that is constructed and designed."
Feser added the weekend will also include a presentation from the STARS air ambulance program which is scheduled to begin service in Saskatchewan later this month. He noted they are hoping to see the helicopter come to Estevan so they can provide training on how to set up a landing zone but was unsure if it would be available.
"That is going to be a big thing and something I wanted to see at the school here since it's going to be servicing the southeast in about half a month's time."
Feser noted the theory portions of the classes will be held at the Estevan Comprehensive School while the hands-on training will take place at their grounds near the City yards. They have also secured a home near the water treatment plant for any training involving a house.
"We had to line up all the vehicles for the extrication (courses) and supply a house for all the search and rescue training, it had to be fully furnished just like any normal house."
