{"id":29264,"date":"2014-10-19T23:23:55","date_gmt":"2014-10-19T15:23:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=29264"},"modified":"2014-10-19T23:23:55","modified_gmt":"2014-10-19T15:23:55","slug":"saskatchewan-residents-wait-for-all-clear-after-natural-gas-fire-extinguished","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/10\/19\/saskatchewan-residents-wait-for-all-clear-after-natural-gas-fire-extinguished\/","title":{"rendered":"Saskatchewan residents wait for all clear after natural gas fire extinguished"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Screenshot<\/a>
Screenshot from Discover Humboldt<\/a> footage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

PRUDHOMME, Sask. — A fire that burned for almost a week at a natural gas pumping station in Saskatchewan is finally out, but affected residents are still waiting for the all-clear before they can return home.<\/p>\n

SaskEnergy spokeswoman Casey MacLeod says the flames at the facility near Prud’homme, northeast of Saskatoon, were extinguished after work began Friday night to replace a damaged wellhead.<\/p>\n

But MacLeod says on Sunday the workers will install a plug further down the well to seal it off, and residents won’t be permitted to return until that job is completed.<\/p>\n

The wellhead leads to one of seven underground caverns used to store natural gas for the winter when demand for heating is greater.<\/p>\n

The company has said that an escape of gas on Oct. 11 led to an explosion and fire that damaged the TransGas facility, but there were no injuries.<\/p>\n

Four families within two kilometres of the site have been affected by the evacuation.<\/p>\n

TransGas is a subsidiary of Crown-owned SaskEnergy.<\/p>\n

MacLeod said crews from the Safety Boss, an Alberta company, sprayed foam to quell the flames right before a crane lowered the new wellhead into place.<\/p>\n

She explained the new wellhead has a stack on top where the gas could then vent into the air while workers bolted it securely into place.<\/p>\n

There is no estimate yet of how much natural gas burned over the past week, but MacLeod said the fire won’t cause a shortage in Saskatchewan this winter and won’t affect gas prices.<\/p>\n

She said there are 26 storage caverns in Saskatchewan, and that prices for natural gas are set in the spring.<\/p>\n

The old wellhead will be sent to a lab for examination to determine the cause of the gas escape, MacLeod said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PRUDHOMME, Sask. — A fire that burned for almost a week at a natural gas pumping station in Saskatchewan is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":29377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-news-ca","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}