Members of the Estevan Fire Rescue Service were called to an apartment building in southeast Estevan twice in a four-hour span early on Feb. 4.
The first call came in at about 3:30 a.m., and the second was around 7:30 a.m.
Fire Chief Dale Feser said that crews arrived on the scene for the first call and performed a substantial search of the building to find a cause. It appears a faulty detection device with the fire alarm system was the culprit.
The second call was related to the same detection device. The building manager was informed, and an electrician was contacted to have the faulty detection head replaced so that it will be running optimally.
Other recent calls for the fire department included a collision between a vehicle and a moose 1 1/2 kilometres north of the junction of Highways 47 and 361 in the evening of Jan. 28. Crews arrived to find that nobody in the vehicle suffered any injuries, but the vehicle was damaged.
The moose was injured but was able to walk away from the accident. It wandered into a field and was not located.
Feser noted that some good Samaritans stopped at the scene, and allowed the occupant of the vehicle to stay warm while waiting for emergency crews to arrive.
“It was one of those extremely cold nights, so it’s always nice to have people stop by and give a helping hand when others are in need,” said Feser.
Firefighters isolated the vehicle and took care of fluid leaks. The scene was turned over to the RCMP to continue with traffic control.
They were also called to a carbon monoxide (CO) alarm at a residence in the morning of Jan. 30. CO was not detected in the home, and the cause proved to be a faulty detection device, which was 19 years old.
Feser reminds people that CO detection devices have the same life span as smoke alarms, which would be 10 years from the date of manufacturing.
A structure fire was reported in the afternoon of Jan. 31. The homeowner was able to safely escape the home, and there was a report of burning plastic.
Firefighters entered with gas detection and thermal imaging equipment. A substantial search of the home didn’t turn up a visible smoke or flame.
Another residential fire alarm was reported on Feb. 3 that proved to be cooking related.
The fire department held a training night on Jan. 29 for its new recruits, teaching them fire station orientation, how to respond to fire calls in their personal vehicles, and policies and procedures within the department.
Recruits will be learning more about building construction, roles and responsibilities, and knowing where everything is on the fire trucks.
