More than three dozen firefighters battled successfully all night to prevent a fierce blaze in a downtown Rocky Mountain House business from spreading.
RCMP phoned in the fire call shortly after 2 a.m. Thursday and firefighters from Rocky Mountain House, Condor and Leslieville were dispatched.
The first crews arriving saw smoke coming from the roof of the single-storey business and from the basement at the back of the building, said Clearwater Regional Fire Rescue Services Fire Chief John Liadis.
“Crews started to work and extinguish the fire. Once they identified that the fire was into the roof and into the cockloft (a space between the ceiling and the roof) as well as heavy flame within the basement they went to defensive tactics only and worked the fire from the outside,” said Liadis.
“The conditions were far too gone and unsafe for crews to work on the inside to fight the fire.”
A second alarm went out to bring in firefighters from Caroline, and Sylvan Lake also pitched in with its ladder truck.
The Rocky station’s ladder truck, two pumpers were joined by pumpers from Condor, Leslieville and Caroline. Sylvan Lake is not part of Clearwater Regional Fire Rescue Services but a special request was made for its ladder truck.
A long-reach excavator also had to be brought in to pull down walls so firefighters could get access to the fire that had spread from the basement, through the walls and into the roof of the older wood-frame building that housed Paradise Day Spa and another business.
The last crews did not leave the scene until about noon. No one was injured in the blaze.
Crews were able to contain the fire to the one building and prevented it from spreading to an adjoining structure and a building separated by a narrow gap on the other side.
Liadis praised the successful efforts of firefighters to keep the blaze from spreading in a part of the downtown with many older buildings nearby.
“They were able to keep it to that building, so there was no fire spread whatsoever. It was a great performance from all the members who attended.
“The intensity was very high. When you look at building structure and location, downtown fires in older building construction areas are very high risk and very dangerous with not knowing all the variables.”
In this case, a peaked roof had been built over top of an older flat roof creating an empty space.
“That void in between creates a lot of very dangerous space. When the fire gets in there it’s very unpredictable.”
The origin and cause of the fire remain under investigation. A damage estimate has not yet been determined.