By Kevin Gilby

Fire ravaged a building at a local business in Davidson on April 15. A pallet fire spread to an adjacent structure at Panther Industries, resulting in the loss of a building. “Lots of little blessings,” said Clayton Schneider, the president of Panther Industries. “No one got hurt; that’s the main thing. “First and foremost, what a wonderful volunteer fire department we have,” he continued. “It was minutes from the call to when they got here. They are just the best team a town like David- son could ask for.” Davidson Volunteer Fire Department (DFD) responded to a call at 3:46 p.m. on April 15 to a fire in the northern commercial area of Davidson. Fifteen members responded with four emergency vehicles in efforts to put out the fire. The rapid speed of the fire forced the firefighters’ efforts to change to containment to pre- vent further damage to adjoining lumber storage. EMS was on scene.

DFD cleared the scene and returned to base just before midnight that evening. Sask Power, SaskEnergy, EMS, RCMP provided support and assistance. The building — colloquially referred to as the Arlend Building named after the previous owner — housed equipment used to prepare lumber for the production of pallets. The firm recently installed new equipment to facilitate lumber cutting, notching, and other related production tasks. Schneider said having a fire hydrant mere metres from the property line, a dugout full of water across an adjacent road, and the favourable, although rare, south-east wind were silver linings to an otherwise costly fire.

“(The wind) was absolutely a gift from Baby Jesus,” Schneider said. The wind and locality of the fire on the edge of property, in addition to the work of the firefighters, are what prevented the fire from spreading to other structures or inventory on site.   The loss of equipment and building have caused Panther staff to quickly find alternatives to prevent shutting down. Schneider said he met with staff while the fire was still being extinguished to draw up contingency plans. Schneider indicated that while they determine the long-term solution, Panther will transport product from two of its other locations based in Edmonton.

“Unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do when you’re watching things burn down,” he said. “But you have to take care of business and people’s jobs. “I assured the five people affected by this that we are going to take care of them and we’re going to get through it. There’s lots of silver linings in here; we’re going to build a building that’s bigger, better, and we’ve got the most loyal staff. “You’ve got to take care of your people. You just have to.”