Members of the Estevan Fire Rescue Service were kept busy with community engagements throughout last week, according to Fire Chief Dale Feser.
“We ended up doing our biweekly training on Tuesday night, where we had the unveilling of our new wild land fire and suppression unit that we have been fundraising for over the better part of the last two years.”
The new unit will assist the Estevan Fire Rescue in several applications, allowing them ease of access to harder to reach areas where typical firefighting equipment may become hindered or stuck. The new unit comes equipped with tracks, rather than tires, allowing it to be used year-round in all weather conditions.
Local firefighters were at the Estevan DQ restaurant on Aug. 9 to support the Miracle Treat Day.
On Aug. 11, fire crews were present at Woodlawn Regional Park’s Boundary Dam beach site for the opening ceremony of the park’s new lifejacket loaner station. The Lifesaving Society was also on hand.
“We had a rescue boat out there along with the rescue equipment we would use for any type of water rescue,” said Feser.
Firefighters were present the night of Aug. 11 at the Estevan Motor Speedway for the program that night for several hours.
“We were assisting members of the Estevan Emergency Medical Service,” said Feser. “No major events happened and it was a fairly quiet night.”
Crews were alerted to a commercial fire alarm at 3:30 a.m. on the morning of Aug.13.
“Crews got the alert for a commercial fire alarm activation in the north central area of the city. When crews arrived on scene there was no visible smoke or flame coming from the building,” said Feser.
“Using thermal imaging cameras we cleared the whole building itself with no remarkable findings of heat signatures so alarms were silenced at that time. We gained entry into the suite and found that it was vacant. Water was found to be coming from the third floor, originating from a tub that had been plugged and overfilled and was pouring water onto the detection device itself causing it to go into alarm. Once this was found out all of our findings were reported to the building manger on scene and we returned to the station.”
