The Derrick Motor Hotel in Estevan will become a base for intensive training for the Estevan Fire Rescue Service (EFRS) members this weekend.
"We'll have some specialized training that's coming up this weekend," said Estevan Fire Chief Dale Feser.
The EFRS contacted the property owners and asked to hold some training inside the empty building.
"We were fortunate enough … And they are going to allow us to go in and do some training in the Derrick Motor Hotel prior to demolition."
The training will start Friday evening and will continue throughout the entire day on Saturday and then on Sunday night.
"You may see some smoke around that area. Nothing to be alarmed about. The fire department will be there in training, so we ask the general public to observe any of the barricades that are put in place for their own safety to allow the crews to train safely and not cause any injuries to the public," said Feser.
He added that the crews are really excited about the upcoming training. The next week's Mercury will have more on the story.
In other recent news, firefighters also responded to a vehicle vs. deer collision Monday evening. The call came in at about 9:30 p.m. The accident occurred on Highway 18 east about 15 kilometres west of Frobisher.
There were no injuries as a result of the collision. The vehicle was undrivable. The scene was turned over to the RCMP and they assisted the driver with getting the towing company out to recover the vehicle.
The other call came in on Tuesday afternoon. A commercial fire alarm went off in one of the buildings in the central part of Estevan. Crews responded, but found no sign of smoke or flame. It turned out that a company was doing some work on site on the fire alarm panel system.
"They indicated that they thought that the monitoring agency was contacted to prevent any dispatch of the fire department," said Feser.
Apparently, the information didn't come through. No emergency was occurring so crews returned to the station.
Tuesday night firefighters also had auto extrication training as part of their regular training. According to the scenario, the car T-boned the bus, which came to rest on top of the car.
"Crews were expected to go in with specialized extract systems, stabilize both vehicles before any extrication can occur and retrieve all patients that may be trapped inside either vehicle," explained Feser.
A specialized instructor joined the training to familiarize Estevan firefighters with the new generation of extrication tools. Crews cut up another vehicle to test the new equipment and compare it to what they are currently using.
"It's very, very quick. It's battery-operated versus our hydraulic-driven tools, which offers quite a few more options. The hydraulic tools take a little while to deploy, set everything out and then get them using, where the battery-operated tools, you just grab them from their holder and go to work right away, which is really key when you have a severely injured patient that needs rapid extrication out of the vehicle for medical attention," explained Feser.
