Fire at Wheat City Metals caused by hot piece of metal coming into contact with scraps: EVRAZ

A full day after arriving at the scene of a scrap metal fire, Regina Fire and Protective Services are still trying to extinguish the blaze.

“When you get a pile of scrap metal and debris like that, you get a fire that’s really deep seeded and it’s hard to get to the seed of that fire. The debris pile that we had seen yesterday has been reduced to about a third of that,” Gord Hewitt, Deputy Chief of Regina Fire and Protective Services said on Friday.

In a statement from EVRAZ, it was explained that the fire was caused by “a hot piece of recycled metal interacting with scrap material.”

According to the statement, no one was injured or impacted.

Regina Fire responded to the blaze just north of the city shortly before 1 p.m. on Thursday following a call from an employee of the business, after seeing a fire in one of the scrap metal piles.

The blaze was contained by 5:30 p.m.

“Right now we’re working on spraying water on the fire but we also have members from Evraz pulling on the pile trying to get some of that debris away so we’ll have a better chance to fully extinguish the flame” Hewitt said.

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While the dark cloud was certainly a prominent sight, it didn’t pose a threat to public safety and the wind has been a helpful factor for firefighters, according to Hewitt.

“Anytime there’s smoke, there’s obviously a risk. We were very lucky this time with the wind direction going north and not going towards the city,” he said.

As for when the fire will be completely gone, that is still up in the air.

“We will continue to work there throughout the day into the evening and potentially into tomorrow to minimize that fire load and fully extinguish the fire,” Hewitt said.

As the fire continues to die down, there are still onlookers passing by to get a glimpse of what remains, and crews will stay on the scene until the last bit of flame has been put out.