BANFF – A fire heavily damaged a house on Grizzly Street shortly before midnight in Banff on Thursday night (Dec. 27).
Eighteen firefighters and five fire trucks responded to the call at 10:30 p.m. and managed to get the fire under control about two hours later, according to Mike Geisler, Banff’s deputy fire chief.
The owners of the house were not home at the time of the fire, however a tenant who lived in the basement escaped prior to firefighters arriving after noticing water dripping from the ceiling.
“It appeared the fire started on the upper level in what appears to be a master bedroom with a large ensuite bathroom,” said Geisler, adding the fire department has been in touch with the property owners, who were out of country at the time of the fire.
According to Geisler, the initial call came in from a taxi driver who noticed heavy smoke coming out of the peak of the roof and could hear a smoke alarm going off.
Less than a minute later, Geisler said he was on scene because the house was located two blocks from the firehall.
The first fire truck arrived four minutes later and immediately began an interior attack and search of the building.
“We were worried that the building was occupied because of the vehicles in the drive way,” said Geisler. “They fought the fire upstairs until the fire was so intense it beat them back.”
Eight minutes into the fire, he said the fire vented itself through an upstairs patio, which firefighters initially didn’t see. From there, they fought the fire from the exterior including using an aerial master stream.
“It could have been a lot worse without the initial attack.”
There was no damage to surrounding buildings and three RCMP members were on hand for traffic and crowd control. Fortis and ATCO also responded to shut off utilities.
Geisler said he suspects the fire was burning for quite some time because when he first arrived on scene, he went to the back of the house and saw through a patio door water coming from the ceiling, indicating the fire may have had enough time to melt water lines, or the solder for copper lines in the upstairs bathroom.
He said somebody living in the back unit of the building also told the RCMP afterwards they smelled smoke coming from the house 10 hours earlier.
[embed]https://www.facebook.com/rmoutlook/videos/229566404624992/[/embed]
