It took more than a year but the fireplace in the Community Plaza in front of the T.G. Smith Centre in Steinbach is finally in use. The custom built unit was installed in the fall of 2016 but Russ Dyck, head of Parks and Recreation, says the Centra Gas division of Manitoba Hydro did not give its approval to the device until recently.

"Approval has now been granted to use the fire pit. I guess what they were looking at was just to make sure that everything, in terms of the gas connection underground and everything, was done properly. That's all been okayed and it's ready to go so we have been using it. We started last weekend. The plan at this point is to have it going Friday and Saturday nights for a few hours, say from 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., just to create a bit of an atmosphere."

Dyck says they will also run it for extra hours on special occasions as they did this past weekend when there was a big ringette tournament in the city. He notes the primary purpose of the fireplace is cosmetic.

"It does throw some heat. There's a birdcage we call it, a screen over top of it, so the fire itself isn't accessible. It's not a fire that can be used for roasting marshmallows or anything like that but it's there mostly for the atmosphere and, obviously, the heat that it creates."