After four hours working in blistering heat and howling winds battling a wildfire southeast of Warman, firefighters hardly had time to catch their breath before responding to a garage fire at 8:00 pm on Saturday, August 22.
“We’d just gotten back to the hall after stopping to fuel up the trucks when the garage fire call came in,” said Warman Fire Chief Russ Austin in an interview Monday, August 24.
“We quickly changed out of our wildland gear into our turnout gear and went back to work.
“We kept the truck assignments from the first fire; with the same guys on the engine, and the crew on the wildland truck switching over to the aerial apparatus.”
The quick response to the garage fire in a duplex on Snead Crescent in Warman’s Legends neighbourhood was critical in saving the home from major damage.
“It appeared the fire was accidental and likely began as a result of an electrical malfunction in a small fridge in the garage,” said Austin. “When we arrived on scene, there was smoke coming from the roof of the garage. The smoke was also making its way into the house.”
Firefighters used a thermal imaging camera to determine that the flames were confined to the garage.
“We weren’t able to enter the attached garage from the house because the door was red hot to the touch,” said Austin. “That indicated the fire was just on the other side of the door.”
Firefighters used a power saw to cut a hole in the overhead door to the garage. Once the door was breached they were able to quickly extinguish the flames.
“The fire had burned through the drywall area and was just starting to burn into the spray foam insulation when we knocked it out,” said Austin. “The firewall did its job. But if it had burned another five or ten minutes, it would have been a much different story.”
Austin said the damage to the garage is estimated at $20,000. The house sustained only minimal smoke damage.
No one was injured in the incident. The residents of the home had self-evacuated. Firefighters rescued a cocker spaniel that was still in the home.
The fire wall between the two sides of the duplex prevented any damage to the neighbouring residence.
By the time the garage fire was out, the 14 firefighters were exhausted.
“If you look up in the dictionary for the definition of ‘giving it your all’, you’ll see a picture of our fire crew from Saturday,” said Austin. “They literally had nothing left in the tank. I can’t express how proud I am of our crew.”
Austin said the past week saw 17 calls, making it the busiest seven-day period for Warman Fire Rescue since 2013.
“We had an unprecedented call volume last week” said Austin. “We had two wildfires, a kitchen fire, the garage fire, several medical calls including a cardiac arrest. Lots of serious stuff.”
He said many fire departments in the region were also run off their feet.
“On Wednesday, August 19, you could hardly talk over the provincial fire radio because it was so jammed with ongoing incidents,” said Austin. “Everybody was busy. There were about 40 or 50 wildfires going on simultaneously across the province.”
Austin said dry conditions, combined with high winds and hot temperatures, have turned area fields into tinderboxes.
“We’ve had quite a few days of crossover, which is a firefighter’s worst nightmare, when the temperature is higher than the relative humidity in the atmosphere, and that literally sucks the moisture right out of the ground,” said Austin. “When it gets like that, a carelessly discarded cigarette or any little spark from farm machinery or a dirt bike or quad can set things off very quickly.”
Austin said the wildfire on Saturday afternoon, August 22 was the result of a baler catching fire while working in a stubble field on a dairy farm southeast of Warman.
Firefighters had to contend with winds gusting up to 60 kilometers per hour as they battled the blaze. They were assisted by area farmers who used their equipment to help contain the fire.
Austin said the field was partially baled when the fire broke out.
“The baler itself was destroyed, but there were no injuries,” he said. “The big issue was the thick swaths of straw. The fire had plenty of fuel and we had no way of directly putting it out with that wind. We fought it from tail to head, and eventually forced it toward a green field of standing corn. The fire ran out of fuel and we were able to catch up to it on its leading side and put it out.
“It’s lucky the wind didn’t shift.”
A wildfire in a field in the same general area occurred at about 2:00 pm on Wednesday, August 19. Austin said that fire was the result of a spark caused by a tractor scraping a rock as it was picking up bales in a field.
Martensville firefighters were called to assist Warman in battling that blaze, which was fanned by a light northwesterly breeze. It took about half an hour to bring that fire under control.