Dry conditions, COVID-19 and other threats will be on the agenda at the annual meeting of the Saskatchewan Association Of Fire Chiefs, and Estevan will have their representative at the table. Fire Chief Dale Feser will be attending the conference starting May 1. 

While normally they take a week to all gather in a host city, this year's conference will be held virtually, as so many other things have had to be due to the pandemic. Once it gets going and the initial weirdness is out of the way, the group will get down to business. 

"We're trying to get some decent content in there to keep everybody engaged and trying to promote for proactive things in the fire service," Feser said, "to ensure we're always staying on top of what is occurring and what we could be seeing coming on the horizon in the next five years."

Naturally, with the conference occurring digitally, the challenges of COVID-19 are bound to come up. What has been a dry spring so far setting the table for a tough wildfire season will be on the table as well. Other situations based on what other departments have dealt with will also be up for discussion. 

"With Saskatoon's incident with carbon monoxide, this is going to be a huge topic of discussion with carbon monoxide detection becoming mandatory," Feser said, "in the national fire code and an amendment to the Saskatchewan fire code in buildings of certain sizes."

Hazardous materials response will also be one of the major points of discussion according to Feser. As for specifics related to COVID-19, keeping up training in a virtual setting will also be in the cards.

"That's something that's kind of hampering us not only in our province here but nationally and right across North America," he said. "So we're trying to find new ways to accomplish the same thing."

Aside from the obvious answer of "fires", there are several problems looming on the horizon fire crews will have to be aware of over the next five years. Thus, the look to the future at this conference. 

"It's probably just dealing with pandemic issues and trying to keep our staff healthy while still providing the same level of service," said Feser. "We take a look at some other things in-industry and obviously not every fire department is going to be the same. We look at the City of Estevan, it's a very industrialized city with a lot of different industries in place, such as coal mining, power generation, farming, ranching. So we kind of have to be the jack of all trades."