As this wildfire season is a massive provincial and national effort, members of the Weyburn Fire Department returned last week from helping with the firefighting up north.
Paid On-Call Firefighter Rob Jack was helping out in Beauval, SK for the entire 10-12 day commitment in early July, with Marc Schweitzer and Mike Hudson helping out for the first stretch of days, after which Brydon Hnatiuk and Marlow Killian joined Jack for the remainder of the committed time.
Deputy Fire Chief Mike Wolk said they have already received another call for service.
"It's really tough to find the staffing to go up right now, but definitely something that we'll look at in August again, once the guys kind of refresh and if things aren't getting better," he shared.
He said there was a great deal of learning for those who assisted with the effort.
"It's nice to see what they brought back, some feedback to our group, 'Hey, this is what we learned'," said Wolk. "Hopefully, we can get more people in the future rolling through those situations, and it makes us stronger as a team and helps us serve the community a little bit better."
Wolk added that most of those who went also have full-time careers outside of their duties as on-call firefighters in Weyburn.
"We rely on the employers to be a little bit flexible too, with some of our guys, and give them that option."