A minor fire in a multi-apartment residential building resulted in apartment evacuation.
A fire alarm went off at about 2 p.m. on Feb. 12. in the central area of the city. Upon arrival, fire crews couldn’t see any visible smoke or flames from the exterior, so they entered the building.
The occupants safely mustered at the common area down below.
The fire alarm panel inside the building indicated that the alarm went off in one of the apartments on the fourth floor.
“Some of the information that was provided at that time was that it was possibly burnt cooking,” said Estevan Fire Chief Dale Feser.
Crews made their way to the fourth floor and found indeed it was a cooking-related incident, and the fire already had been extinguished, however, there still was light smoke in the hallway and medium smoke in the apartment.
Firefighters had to ventilate the building and reset the fire alarm panel.
“Everybody did a great job in this particular instance, where they did not only rely on the fire alarm system for the building, but they also had subsequent 911 calls,” said Feser.
“Just a gentle reminder, whenever you are in a multi-family residence occupancy like this, you definitely want to follow all the established emergency protocol when an emergency occurs, such as mustering down in to the lower areas, the common areas. So that way we can have everybody accounted for,” said Feser.
He also reminded the public that unattended cooking is the leading cause of house fires in Canada.
Members of the Estevan Fire Rescue Service also held their regular training on Feb. 11. The training saw the NFPA 1001 candidates that are going for certification wrapping up on some hazardous materials awareness and operations level training. They’ll go through testing for certification later this year.
