OLDS — RCMP and the Olds Fire Department are working together to determine the cause of a fire that destroyed an uninhabited home the night of Jan. 30.
Firefighters were dispatched to the house, located at 45th Street and 46th Avenue (Highway 2A) at about 10:10 p.m. with two engines, an aerial ladder truck and command unit.
“A residential two-storey home that has been unoccupied for a significant amount of time was found to be on fire by crews upon arrival,” a news release, issued by Olds Fire Department Chief Justin Andrew says.
A concerted effort was made to ensure there were no occupants in the structure at the time.
“With quick investigation by RCMP officers who attended, it was determined there were no potential casualties,” the release says.
A total of 19 firefighters were on-scene in various shifts during the night to manage the fire.
“Due to the status of the structure and the age of construction, firefighters used a cautious approach to manage the fire, as there was no salvageable value to the property and firefighter safety was paramount,” the release says.
“There were no injuries to firefighters during this incident and damage was limited to the building of origin but was considered a total loss.”
Some residents and witnesses said the fire involved a vet clinic in the area, but Andrew stressed to reporters that that was not the case.
He said the property the house sat on is part of a larger parcel of land that surrounds the Town of Olds administration office and was recently annexed by the town.
There are a couple of abandoned homes in the area. Andrew said the one that burnt down was a green one that was located well away from the vet clinic.
"It was the original homestead of that quarter section and it has been vacant for a number of years, so nobody’s been residing there for quite some time,” he said.
Andrew was asked if there any signs of suspicious behaviour at the scene.
“Well, the nature of the fire in itself is suspicious because it’s an unoccupied structure, so, yeah, I mean, there’s a little bit of reading between the lines, obviously,” he said.
“Typically, structures like that don’t just randomly burn for no reason when nobody lives in them, so at the end of the day we do have to try to get that figured out,” he said.
