Estevan Fire Rescue was busy over the holiday season with a number of reports coming in, including a large fire just before Christmas.
Fire Chief Rick Davies detailed the last calls of the year received by EFR.
On December 16 at around 8 p.m., a crew responded to a residential fire alarm in the East central part of the city. Before the crews headed out to the location an update came in, confirming that the call was false and assistance wasn't required. Crews subsequently stood down.
A crew had quite the battle on December 22. Just before 11 p.m., a crew was dispatched to deal with a structure fire on the West end of the city. After crews responded and confirmed the fire they worked throughout the night to bring the fire under control and extinguish it. The structure - the Super 6 Motel just outside of Estevan - suffered significant fire damage with a portion demolished with heavy equipment to help extinguish the fire. No injuries were reported from the incident with the cause still under investigation.
On Christmas Eve crews were dispatched around 5:45 p.m. to a residential fire alarm in the south end of the city. Crews were then updated that the call was false and no assistance was needed, with them standing down.
Then on Boxing Day, another crew was dispatched at 5:30 p.m. for a commercial carbon monoxide alarm in the central part of the city. Crews looked into the matter and found moderate levels of carbon monoxide, confirmed to be caused by vehicle exhaust. The building was ventilated to clear out the carbon monoxide with no injuries or illnesses reported from the incident.
Chief Davies says that in total the EFR ran 255 calls across 2024, which is higher than the 187 calls in 2023 while being lower than the 257 calls received in 2022.