On May 14, the Canora and District Fire Department experienced a day which members will not soon forget.
Devon Sawka, fire chief, said in total they spent over 18 hours fighting fires and attending to motor vehicle accidents.
The first call came in at 12:32 a.m. to an abandoned yard three miles south of Canora. When the fire department arrived, the structure on the yard was fully involved and burning. They requested mutual aid from the Ebenezer Fire Department. The origin of the fire appeared to be suspicious, since there were no storms taking place and the yard had no power to it for a number of years. But there will be no investigation, since the fire left nothing to investigate, said Sawka.
The Canora firefighters worked on the fire till approximately 1:45 a.m. when they received a call to a garage fire in Burgis Beach. Since it was a threat to nearby occupied dwellings, that fire was considered more important and the Canora group moved on to Burgis Beach. The fire resulted in the total loss of the garage and its contents. The Canora firefighters were there for approximately three hours, and then returned to the original fire to relieve the Ebenezer firefighters and contain hot spots. This work continued for two hours until around 6:30 a.m.
At this point, the Canora firefighters received a welcome break until about 8:30 a.m. when they were called out to a two vehicle collision on a gravel road one mile north and one mile west of Canora. One vehicle was totalled while the other received minor damage. RCMP and EMS also attended the scene. CO Towing from Canora cleaned up the scene and kept traffic moving, said Sawka. Canora firefighters were at the scene for approximately two hours.
After a one-hour break, at approximately 11:30 a.m. they received a call to the site of the original fire, at the abandoned yard three miles south of Canora, where the other side of the yard was on fire, said Sawka. The fire involved bush and grass, and also destroyed an old barn. The Canora firefighters started what is known as a back burn between the fire and Highway No. 9 to prevent the fire from reaching the highway. This fire kept them busy until around 4 p.m. At that point they had about a 30-minute break, which allowed them to do some cleanup work.
At 4:30 p.m. a call came in from the Rhein Fire Department for mutual assistance at a large grass fire about six miles north of Rhein, which kept the Canora firefighters busy for about four hours. Sawka said upon arrival at the scene, they found Rhein Fire had the approximately 40-acre fire mostly under control, but were in need of assistance. A number of pieces of farm equipment in the path of the fire were destroyed. In addition to assisting with fighting the fire, the Canora group protected a house while Rhein Fire protected a nearby barn.
At 8:30 p.m. a fire call came in to Canora from the scene of the first fire at the abandoned yard site south of Canora, when a passerby noticed logs had caught fire at the site due to a change in wind direction. Putting that fire out took roughly 30 minutes, said Sawka.
The Canora firefighters responded to their final call of the day at around 10 p.m. when a call came in from a collision between and deer and a vehicle about nine miles south of Canora. The vehicle was a total loss. Sawka said they were on the scene for about an hour. RCMP and EMS were also on the scene, along with Baillie Boys Towing from Yorkton.
Sawka said throughout this long, hard day they received welcome support from members of the Canora community.
“The Leson family and Tricia Bedore brought food. Gateway Co-op brought coffee. This was very much appreciated,” said Sawka. “It definitely helped us get through the day, because otherwise we didn’t get a chance to eat.”
Sawka was happy to report that throughout the day there were no significant injuries from the fires or the motor vehicle accidents.
He said this was one of the most challenging days he can remember during close to seven years with the Canora and District Fire Department.
“The only other one that was similar was the day in October 2017 where we had numerous fires caused by the wind storm,” said Sawka. “Both were really long days. The difference was the calls that day were all related to the wind, where the one this week was an amazing sequence of unrelated events in the same day.”
