The massive loss of 4,000 pigs at a LeRoy based farm on Saturday is still dominating coffee shop chatter in the region.

LeRoy Fire Chief Paul Cockell spoke about the blaze Wednesday.

He said they knew how large the fire was long before they arrived on scene.

"You hear the words, 'pig barn fire' as it was described on the text from PA dispatch you get a little bit concerned because you always think the worst. Once we made the turn out of LeRoy it was painfully evident that yeah, this was a big fire. I knew right away, we called for mutual aid before we even got on scene just because I knew it was going to be pretty massive."

Both the Humboldt and Englefeld departments responded hoping to help but there wasn't much any crew could do to save the two buildings.

"Once we got there, that first building was completely involved so there was no going into it," Cockell described. "We had and crossed our fingers that we might be able to prevent the fire spread but by the time we shut the gas off it was already apparent the fire had spread already. It was just a matter of making sure it didn't spread to the feed mill and making sure nobody got hurt."

Cockell claims that he is a positive aspect individual, therefore he believes this could have been much worse so he looks on the bright side at the outcome.

"Our first concern is life before property and that's the way we kind of went with. It is a shame that some of the livestock got lost but I'm a silver lining kind of guy, they could of had a lot more in there. They could have had a lot more in there, I think they had maybe one-fifth or one-quarter of what they normally would have."

Cockell expressed thanks to both the surrounding fire departments for their help as well as area residents who helped provide water and food to the responders.

"Small town Saskatchewan man, as a Calgary boy, I love Calgary but moving here, I'm amazed at the support we got. With the farmers coming out with water trucks, and bringing water and food to us, I can't say enough, it's amazing to me."

"I'm proud of my volunteer firefighters but I am just as proud of the people in the community for helping out like that as well."

The family that operates the Sinnett Pork Farm nursery also wanted to stress their gratitude to the first responders, fire fighters and as well the surrounding residents that assisted.

You can hear more from Cockell below in his interview with Bolt FM's Clark Stork below.