Residents driving around the northern edge of the city yesterday were treated to a bit of a fire show courtesy of SaskEnergy.

The crown corporation was performing some maintenance work on natural gas lines in the area, and in order to do so safely had to burn off excess gas in order for work crews to work in the area.

Shirley Xie is the Senior Communications Manager with SaskEnergy.

"The reason why we do a flare is that flaring is sort of the industry-standard procedure when natural gas needs to be released from a gas line. And by burning it, we're reducing the carbon footprint of the vented natural gas by 85 percent."

The flare burned bright for roughly seven hours, and according to Xie, no gas service in the area was disrupted.