The Estevan Fire Rescue Service (EFRS) had a busy start to the week.
On Feb. 22, crews responded to three calls in a matter of a few hours.
At about noon, they were called out to an elevator rescue at Affinity Place. Once on scene crews verified that there was no one inside the elevator and nobody was working on or around it. Once it was deemed safe to do so, they accessed the elevator and also asked the staff to check the security cameras footage.
The video showed that a man with a few kids exited the elevator just before the call came into the fire department.
"It appears that maybe a child had accidentally hit the button on the elevator car initiating the call," said Estevan Fire Chief Dale Feser. "Thankfully, no one was entrapped in the elevator and crews returned to the station."
Once firefighters got back, they were immediately called to a commercial fire alarm occurring in a public school in the southcentral part of Estevan. There were no signs of fire outside or inside the building.
Through a conversation with staff, it was learned that one of the students came back to school after recess, took off a jacket and caught the hood on the fire pull station, activating the alarm.
"Crews remained on site to assist the school staff in rearming the system," Feser said.
Another commercial fire alarm went off around 4 p.m. The caller also reported some noxious odour occurring in the building. There was no visible smoke or flame on the exterior of the building. Firefighters entered the building, where they could smell the reported odour. They checked out the apartments and found the cause of the odour.
"It wasn't causing any immediate danger to life and safety of the occupants," Feser said.
They talked to maintenance staff and gave advice on how to resolve the situation.
Tuesday afternoon fire crews were called to the report of a power pole fire, occurring in 1300 block of the Second Street, on the back alley. The top part of the power pole was on fire, compromising the structural integrity.
"We set up perimeter control, preventing anybody from going into the area until SaskPower crews could arrive on scene. They isolated power for us and we extinguished the power pole fire so that they could re-energize and repair that particular power pole."
After the fire was extinguished the scene was turned over to SaskPower and fire crews returned to the station.
