Fire crews tackle scrapyard blaze

It was a long night for Regina firefighters.

Crews responded to what they thought would be some grass fires north of the Evraz steel plant shortly before 11 p.m. Tuesday.

Fire chief Neil Sundeen said crews realized this blaze was more serious than initially thought as soon as they arrived.

“Units realized very quickly that it was much more than a grass fire, there was a pile of scrap metals that was fully involved in flames,” Sundeen said. “We brought up to five trucks out there during the night in order to protect the buildings and equipment that is out there.

“There were challenges throughout the night but the crews did manage to keep the fire contained to this pile.”

Sundeen said he believes the fire would have started after something went wrong when a vehicle was shredded in a piece of a machinery at the steel scrap yard.

Sundeen had a lot of praise for his crews when after nearly seven hours after the fire started they had it under control.

“It became a challenge throughout the night to save millions of dollars worth of equipment out there,” Sundeen said. “It was out of our normal response area, the lighting and the water supply was different and they were unfamiliar with the territory out there.

“They did a fantastic job of fighting that fire, they definitely worked real hard last night.”

No one was injured and Sundeen said no buildings or equipment were damaged.