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A cigarette butt resulted in a grass fire

The Estevan Fire Rescue Services (EFRS) were called to a wildland fire on Tuesday at about 2 p.m. The fire occurred by the Highway 39 bypass northeast of Estevan right by Bert Baxter Transport yard.
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The Estevan Fire Rescue Services (EFRS) were called to a wildland fire  on Tuesday at about 2 p.m.

The fire occurred by the Highway 39 bypass northeast of Estevan right by Bert Baxter Transport yard. 

“Crews responded …  and did encounter a small and easily handled and contained wildfire that was occurring,” said Estevan Fire Chief Dale Feser.

The fire was extinguished without incident. Upon further investigation, it was found that the cause of the fire was a cigarette that wasn’t properly discarded.

“Careless discarding of smoking material was the cause of the fire,” said Feser.

“Anybody who is actually smoking in their vehicles ... you want to make sure that you are properly extinguishing your cigarettes using ashtrays as opposed to throwing them out the window as this can easily start a fire especially when we are in drier conditions with wind.” 

Feser pointed out that now that the crops are riping out in the fields the situation might be even more dangerous as if the fire gets into the crops it spreads quite quickly and has really detrimental effects to the producers.

This week firefighters also responded to a vehicle versus deer accident. The call came in on Wednesday at 10 a.m.  The collision occurred about 10 kilometres west of Torquay on Highway 18.

Crews responded to the scene and provided traffic control. Local first responders did a medical assessment on the individuals involved and confirmed that there were no injuries. The vehicle was undrivable, so firefighters zeroed out energy to ensure that there would be no accidental deployment of airbags and assisted with getting a towing company out to the scene to recover the vehicle.

The storms that hit the southeast part of Saskatchewan Wednesday night continuing into Thursday morning didn’t result in any calls for the EFRS, but they brought some needed moisture, and the fire danger index went from extreme to moderate.