Comedians rush to put out fire at Blue Willow Inn north of Wadena

This weekend four Saskatchewan comedians took a break from making people laugh to raise the alarm and fight a fire.

Overnight on Friday, the four were in a car, headed home from a show north of Yorkton. They were driving through Wadena, when Kelly Taylor said the driver spotted what looked like a fire.

The group stopped near the Blue Willow Inn north of the town and all got out of the car.

“So we came in and we just started hammering on all the windows to get everybody out, like hitting the windows as hard as we could, because obviously, no one knew this was happening,” Taylor explained Monday in an interview with the morning show on Jack 94.5.

Then they looked for a way to put the fire out.

“We’re looking for a hose or water there’s no tap outside, I’m like ‘ho this thing is going to take off’, and that’s when Ben found the extinguisher.”

Taylor said the fire started to climb up the roof and soffit, and while one man was going at the flames with the fire extinguisher the rest of them were running to taps.

“And then we got a kind of a non-stop train of running in and getting to different taps with buckets, and we kind of got it contained that way.”

Thanks to the men’s quick action, no one was hurt in the fire, and Taylor said they all have new material for their acts.

Wadena Volunteer Fire Department also posted about the fire on Facebook, noting their small department responded to three calls within eight hours that day. The fire department credited the work of ‘passing motorists’ to forming a bucket brigade to keep the fire in check until the firefighters arrived at the scene.

“They should be applauded for saving lives and limiting damaged to the building,” the fire department wrote in a post, noting that strangers helping strangers in need is truly the “Saskatchewan Way.”

The cause of the fire is under investigation but it is not considered to be suspicious at this time.