Olds Fire officials are investigating the cause of Monday's fire call at the Sundial Growers cannabis production facility in town.
Firefighters were called to the scene in the southeast industrial park (just west of the cemetery) 10:54 a.m.
Fifteen firefighters responded with two engines, a ladder truck and support vehicles, along with an engine from Didsbury. Alberta Health Services. An ambulance was on-scene as well.
Fire crews found a "working contents fire" in one of the business's production areas.
The fire was contained to the room where it started.
"Damage was extensive due to extreme heat," the release says. "Fire crews were able to extinguish the fire quickly when access was made, and extensive salvage and overhaul activities were conducted."
There were no reported injuries of any workers or firefighters.
"Heavy smoke was initially encountered and diminished with suppression efforts," a fire department news release says.
"There was no abnormal risk to the public or responders due to the products of combustion."
Fire officials said a damage estimate had not yet been conducted.
The news release was issued late Monday night. At that time a damage estimate had not been costed.
“We saw some smoke, so we got the fire department here to check out what’s going on,” said Torsten Kuenzlen, Sundial CEO.
Kuenzlen ensured that there was no fire, that everyone made it out safely.
When interviewed Monday morning, Kuenzlen was not sure what had caused the fire.
“No, not yet. It looks like some electrical cause, with black smoke. We’re going to work through all of it and figure out what happened and take the appropriate steps from here,” said Kuenzlen .
Kuenzlen praised the fire department for getting on-scene quickly and mentioned how well Sundial's emergency procedures worked.
“Everybody got out, all the procedures we put in place worked phenomenally well,” said Kuenzlen. “Didn’t want to test them that way but we did; it all worked good. Glad everybody is fine and we’ll deal with it as we know what happened.”
