Members of the Estevan Fire Rescue Service were called to three separate calls in less than an hour on Thursday afternoon.
The first two calls were for grass fires. One came in at around 12:30 p.m. southeast of the city in the rural municipality of Estevan. Crews arrived on the scene, kept the fire from spreading, and quickly suppressed the flames.
“No sooner than we got that one taken care of than we were dispatched to another reported controlled burn that was now out of control, and that was to the northeast of the city by the airport,” said Fire Chief Dale Feser.
The landowner met the firefighters and guided them in from the airport, as Feser said the fire was in a remote location without much accessibility. The fire was easily contained and brought back under control.
The third call came in just before 1:30 p.m., and was a reported structure fire at Midtown Manor. Firefighters went to the building, and when they arrived, they found it was just a contractor who was working on the fire alarm system, and set off several detection devices.
“The fire alarm company was actually reporting several hits on several different locations,” said Feser.
The contractor neglected to contact the monitoring agency to make them aware of the maintenance ongoing to the fire alarm system.
Firefighters assessed the situation and found it was easily manageable, and spoke to the contractor about proper protocol.
While they have had this much activity in a short amount of time in the past, Feser said it is a rare occurrence.
Once the calls were finished, firefighters returned to the fire hall and resumed setting up for the upcoming fall training school for the Saskatchewan Volunteer Firefighters Association, which will be in Estevan from Friday to Sunday.
Feser and the rest of the fire department are hopeful they will be able to focus on the fire school this weekend.
