Members of the Estevan Fire Rescue Service showed their dedication to the community during some busy nights this week.
Monday saw them respond to four calls in a six-hour time frame, starting at 5 p.m. The first was at a three-story apartment building in north-central Estevan. Crews arrived on scene and found that there wasn’t a visible smoke or flame.
“Crews did arrive to observe and investigate the fire alarm panel to find that several detection heads were going off inside the occupancy, but we noted that as soon as we made entry, it was extremely humid due to the weather conditions that day,” said Fire Chief Dale Feser.
After inspecting the floors with thermal imaging cameras, the scene was turned over to the property management group. Feser noted this building has a history of humidity-related calls.
The next call was at a restaurant in southeast Estevan at 6:30 p.m. The activated detection device was in the kitchen area, and was again set off by the humidity.
“The staff was removing some items from the big, walk-in freezers, and the door was open for a considerable amount of time, which caused some moisture to be released,” said Feser.
Their third call Monday was at 10 p.m. at St. Joseph’s Hospital. Crews found that humidity was the source, and there had been a history with that detection head. Hospital staff members have since been fixing the problem area.
Finally, they were called to a two-story, multi-family dwelling at 11 p.m. in north-central Estevan, which was caused by humidity.
“The biggest thing we would like to make sure that everybody is aware of is just because it is a humidity-related alarm – and in all of these instances, there was no real emergency occurring at that time – please don’t just take that for granted, because there could be a real emergency going on there,” said Feser.
In all incidents, people did a great job of evacuating the buildings.
Also this week, the fire department had a training evening Tuesday in which new recruits performed search and rescue drills. They carried charged hose lines, and found and retrieved rescue dummies. The focus was on communication and incident command outside the scene.
And they were on scene Wednesday night for the City of Estevan’s fireworks display. No issues occurred during the fireworks that required their attention.
