It was shortly after 5:40 p.m. last Thursday when Sara Hollar was awakened by a loud commotion while sleeping with her 18-month-old son Colton in their first-floor apartment suite at Penhold's Wild Rose Manor.
On the same floor, Jim Harrison was also sleeping when an odd smell shook him out of his own afternoon slumber. He immediately saw a white mist hovering over his balcony.
“The mist was coming from the next floor. I thought what the hell was that? Then it started turning brown, and billowing kind of like smoke,” said Harrison. “I ran out to the balcony and looked up and the whole side of the building was on fire. I jumped over my balcony to get a hoe to put the fire out, but thought it was useless and ran back to get my wallet and I couldn't even go inside because there was so much smoke.”
Hollar also smelled the smoke. She knew instantly there was a fire in her building but alarms were not pulled. However, there were unmistakable sounds of panic all around her.
“The guy next door, a tax driver, got out of the building and did not pull the fire alarm and another jumped on his balcony and took off in his vehicle and nobody has seen him in two days,” said the 23-year-old mother. “The lady upstairs seen the fire below her, and pulled the fire alarm and made sure I got out of the building. I had to get out through my balcony because the hallway was engulfed in flames and 10 steps from the building my roof collapsed.”
Luckily, there were no fatalities from the fire. Everyone inside the building got out in time, which can accurately be considered miraculous as the three-storey, 18-unit building at 40 Esther Close, which collapsed within an hour of the start of the blaze, had no sprinkler system. Without it, the building became a raging inferno within minutes.
Meanwhile, all residents, now homeless, have the same story and feelings from the fire of April 10 -- bewilderment, panic, shock and now worry. Everyone lost everything. They are trying as best they can to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives with the help of a generous and compassionate community that instantly rallied on the night of the fire with huge donations of food, clothes, money and blankets.
“We haven't got any donations yet. It takes a long time. We got a $453 cheque from my landlord today and it was like, ‘See you later' and we have to be out of this hotel after tonight,” said Hollar, who was staying at Red Deer's Motel 6 last weekend with her baby and fiancé Michael Bergevin. “I lost everything in that fire and there were 18 families in there.”
Fire officials in Penhold, along with the RCMP, are still sifting through the ruins of the destroyed apartment building trying to find answers to how exactly the blaze started and left the entire community in shock in what is believed to be the worst disaster in the town's history.
“For loss of property and destruction this is definitely the largest I have ever seen in the community,” said Mayor Dennis Cooper, who has lived in Penhold for 37 years. He said the only calamity that is even close to the fire of April 10 was the grain elevator blaze 35 years ago, but he quickly added that event did not touch the lives of the community like the Wild Rose Manor blaze.
Fire Chief Jim Pendergast said his 26 volunteer firefighters were at the fire scene for 48 continuous hours, from Thursday evening until Saturday. During the first five hours the Penhold crews were assisted by firefighters from Red Deer County and Innisfail.
He said fire investigators from Penhold, the Alberta Fire Commissioner's Office, Innisfail RCMP and the insurance company determined the fire was not suspicious and “likely” started in a second-floor balcony barbecue that also served as a smoker for fish and meat.
“It is a science, not an exact science. It is pretty complex,” said Pendergast of the investigation into the cause of the blaze. He said fire officials and RCMP still want building residents to come forward and identify barbecue propone tanks, a process that could firm up investigators' opinions on the location and cause of the blaze.
Pendergast said the fire caused two serious smoke inhalation injuries to building residents. They were transported to Innisfail Health Centre, treated and have since been released.
He said firefighters might have been able to save the building, which still had its original cedar siding and collapsed within an hour after the fire started, if it had a sprinkler system, which is mandatory today for any new buildings.
“Cedar burns very hot and very fast. In my career as a firefighter any time I have gone to a building that had cedar it has always been fully involved by the time I arrived,” said Pendergast, adding damage from the fire is estimated to be well over $1 million with another $100,000 added to the losses from the cost to the town to put out the blaze. “I think we would have had a chance to save it (building), yes. If the fire started inside the suite then spread outside, the sprinklers would not have done anything for the part that was outside. The sprinkler is designed not to put the fire out but it is designed to help hold the fire, and we might have had a chance to limit the damage in some suites or save a portion of the building.”
In the meantime, the town's water supply was critically depleted because of the amount that had to be used by firefighters to put out the blaze.
“We need people for the rest of the week to help conserve water,” said Pendergast.
As town officials and investigators continue their tasks in the fire's aftermath, Penhold citizens -- along with the Red Cross, its emergency response team and the Salvation Army -- are doing their best this week to help the victims of the fire meet their basic needs.
Jody Nurse, a 29-year-old resident, said while the blaze of April 10 was devastating to the community it has also brought citizens closer together.
“Everyone is just trying to help everybody who has been affected by the fire because there is nothing left. They don't have anything,” said Nurse, who was busy last weekend comforting the homeless. “We had a couple that went two weeks early to have their baby because of everything that happened to her. We have another couple that is supposed to be getting married on the 26th. It has changed everybody's life in Penhold.”
With files from Tim Lasiuta
