While officials wrapped up their on-site investigation at the soot-smeared corner of a Sylvan Lake neighbourhood on Thursday afternoon, those whose houses were vapourized in a firestorm earlier this week were beginning to take stock.
The cause of the fire on Tuesday hasn’t been released, and Sylvan fire chief Cliff Brausen and Alberta Emergency Management Agency field officer Frank Harris are now moving on to more witness interviews.
Brausen said he expected a determination of cause could be released sometime next week.
“Obviously this is a little more than a dumpster fire,” said Harris.
“We have so much information to collect, pictures to collect, people to talk to. It’s just all very time-consuming.”
Four houses were destroyed, another 12 were damaged and 14 people have been displaced.
Grant Hreherchuk, meanwhile, has been on an emotional roller-coaster, pained at the loss of his home at the corner of Wildrose Drive and Wilkinson Circle but overjoyed at how the community has come to his family’s aid.
The general manager of the two McDonald’s outlets in town has had victim services staff pressing him to make sure he eats, since he lost his appetite after the fire.
“I’m starting to be better now. I’m getting more centred,” Hreherchuk said Thursday. “The big things were getting a place for my family to be and then start rebuilding some semblance of a home so they can be comfortable again. The healing won’t start until we can get to a point like that.”
Hreherchuk has two sons he says have impressed him with how well they’ve been holding it together. Bennett, 14, left for a school band trip to B.C. the morning after the fire, and Jordan, 18, just returned from a convention in Calgary.
“I felt it was good they had some distractions to take their minds off all the chaos going on,” said Hreherchuk.
His wife Tanya has been on vacation in B.C. and was scheduled to come home to Sylvan Lake on Thursday evening. Hreherchuk said he was going to phone victim services and have them meet him and his wife at the scene of the fire, where their home is in ashes.
After that, the couple will check out a furnished three-bedroom mobile home that they’ve been offered for accommodation for free for up to six months by a local church.
“I can’t say thanks enough to the people in the community,” said Hreherchuk, explaining that people have been helping out with hotel stays, gift cards and much more.
“For a person like me, I’m very low-key, very unassuming, and I just do what I do. For all these people to notice you, they worry about you, was a huge shock for me.”
Hreherchuck’s house was insured, as was the house next door, owned by local realtor Willard Morris and occupied by his daughter and grandsons.
Morris said donations have been coming in from all over the country. His daughter and her boys, who were left only with the clothes on their backs (with one grandson only in socks), are now staying at his house.
“We finally got a fairly good night’s sleep last night, so everybody’s attitude is a lot better than it was,” said Morris. “It was a pretty solemn outfit until we got some sleep.”
Anyone wanting to drop off gift cards, food vouchers or cash for the people who lost their homes can do so at Community Partners, located at 4936 50th Ave. in Sylvan Lake.
mgauk@www.reddeeradvocate.com