INNISFAIL – Firefighters from across the region rushed to Innisfail early this morning to put out a second-floor fire at a historic downtown building that left several citizens homeless and lingering concern that another heritage building may be lost in the town.
Innisfail Fire Department Chief Gary Leith said a call came in at 3:27 a.m. on Aug. 2 that a fire had erupted on the second floor of a downtown historic building at the southwest side of Bankers Corner.
When crews arrived on scene there was visible smoke and flame coming from the rear of the second floor of the building, said Leith, adding power lines above were also down.
He said firefighters assisted second-floor residents out of the building.
“We tried to attack the fire internally. We then had a roof collapse on the crews, which threw everybody out and we went defensive,” said Leith, adding no firefighters were injured.
He said the Innisfail Fire Department then called Penhold and Olds fire departments for aerial platform support in order to enable firefighters to attack the fire externally “from the top.”
“This building is a historical building here in town. The roof has probably got 120 years worth of bitumen on it, which causes challenges,” said Leith. “But hopefully we've managed to resolve them. Unfortunately, we've got probably 100 per cent fire damage on the second floor.”
For the next four hours up to 18 firefighters from Innisfail, Olds, Red Deer County and Penhold battled the fire. The residents of the four second-floor suites were safely taken to the homes of friends.
By 8 a.m. fire crews at the scene had contained the blaze and were putting out hot spots as many early morning citizens had arrived downtown for work at nearby businesses.
The stricken Bankers Corner building is beside the lot where the historic Berscht building was destroyed in a 2009 fire. The lot is now used as a rest area for downtown shoppers and a venue for events.
As for the future of the fire-ravaged 120-year-old structure, Leith said it was his opinion that the building could be saved.
“The exterior of the structure has taken the fire extremely well; far better than a more modern building,” said Leith. “With the sandstone brickwork, and if you take a walk around, you can see it has held up without any additional damage other than the damage we've done to the top of it by extinguishing the fire.”
He said the building’s ground-level floor also sustained damage, but far less extensive.
“There will be extensive water damage to the bottom floor because obviously we had to go to an extra area to attack and put large volumes of water that went through the roof,” said Leith.
As for the cause of the blaze, Leith said that will be categorically determined by fire inspectors but for now the fallen power line is being seriously looked at.
“From reports we have received it may have been an external source of a failure of a power line into the rear of the property that ignited the side and that's what we're looking at,” said Leith.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect new information on the number of residents affected by the fire.
