A pair of events highlighted the weekend for the Estevan Fire Department. One of them was celebratory and always a day of the year they're happy to be part of. The other was more serious and involved snuffing out a potential fire hazard before it could get too serious. 

To start off, crews were part of the parade celebrating the graduates of the Estevan Comprehensive School. Firefighters participated in a similar celebration last year as a way to send off the grads in socially distant style. 

"We did have a fire truck staged up to the Souris Avenue entrance there and wished them all well," said Fire Chief Dale Feser. "It looked like it was a great parade. All congrats and lots of success in their future endeavors from the fire department to the 2021 ECS grads."

Though the parade involved numerous cars driving all over Estevan, the fire department wasn't called out to any vehicle crashes or serious incidents. In fact, their only call for service all weekend came Sunday evening at about 7:30. 

"A fire pit investigation was called in by the Estevan Police Service in the south-central area of the city," Feser said. "Crews did arrive on-scene to find that a fire pit was being illegally operated as it wasn't meeting the minimum clearance distance from combustible items."

Fire crews and the EPS had the homeowner extinguish the firepit and follow up by coming into the fire station and purchased a valid firepit permit while also being given a refresher on some of the bylaws around it. As it was, his firepit was not operating safely. 

"It wasn't meeting the minimum clearance distance of ten feet from any combustible items," said Feser. "As well, he was also burning leaves and twigs in there, which is not acceptable as per the bylaw as they promote a lot of smoke, which is a nuisance to a lot of the neighboring properties as well as it produces small embers which easily migrate."

Feser added fire pit calls like this aren't exactly common, as people tend to be well-educated on where they can put their fire pit and what they can burn in it. In fact, he said they typically get about three calls a year for fire pit investigations.