The members of the Bienfait Fire Department and Estevan Fire Rescue Service were kept busy Saturday after a building caught fire in downtown Bienfait.Located next to the town's gas station and convenience store, the structure, which was retrofitted to a residence, caught fire during the morning hours. Dale Feser, deputy chief of the Estevan Fire Rescue, said the investigation into the blaze is ongoing and a cause is unknown."We were called in on a mutual aid basis to help extinguish the fire," Feser said. Given the fire's proximity to the gas station and a neighboring building to the north, Feser said their focus was on preventing the blaze from spreading to its neighbors."It was definitely in the attic structure of the building so we wanted to make sure it wasn't going to progress to the north or to the south to the gas station. "We got some high volume lines in place and protected that structure to the north by putting up a protective curtain and cooling down all of our exposures to the north."Feser admitted that all involved were lucky the blaze did not spread."The Officer of the Fire Commissioner, they were down as part of the investigation and they said the exact same thing. They couldn't believe we saved the two surrounding buildings and that the whole block wasn't gone," said Feser who noted that some unorthodox tactics, such as using a backhoe to tear off the front parapet of the building, may have prevented the situation from becoming a full blown disaster."We just couldn't get into the attic structure. The building was a total loss and we had to make an opening so that we could get in. It was a really old building and it was retrofitted for a single-family dwelling."
