A weekend fire at the Francis Cooke Regional Landfill is believed to be suspicious and an investigation continues, according to Canmore RCMP.
Operations were restored at the facility as of Wednesday (Nov. 25) and today (Nov. 26), waste will be accepted from the general public.
The main administration office, scale house and one vehicle, along with equipment at the class 3 facility were destroyed in the blaze. It forced operations to be shut down for 48 hours.
Francis Cooke will be on a cash-only basis until further notice, said Paul Ryan, board chair for Bow Valley Waste Management Commission (BVWMC). Ryan said there will be “nothing normal” about operations for the time being.
“We’ve had to bring in temporary buildings because all of our buildings were destroyed,” said Ryan. “To set up the software system and the weigh scale and the building system that a landfill actually uses is very complicated, and it takes time to get everything in place.
“Right now, our staff are taking information manually and we’ll be dealing on a cash-only basis until we can get our point of service sales software back in place.”
A temporary scale house has been leased and delivered on site, but will have limited capacity.
The administration office will be temporarily based out of the Exshaw Hall’s media room.
Emergency crews believe the blaze was ignited in the early morning hours on Sunday (Nov. 22), but the damage wasn’t discovered until Monday morning when employees arrived for work.
Light smoke escaping from the wreckage was all that remained of the buildings when Exshaw Fire-Rescue arrived on Monday morning, said Fire Chief Rick Lyster.
“We didn’t put any water on it to preserve it for the investigation,” said Lyster.
Damage estimates are between $300,000 and $500,000, and the BVWMC is waiting on the report from the fire investigator.
The landfill is about four kilometres east of Exshaw in the MD of Bighorn.
Ryan said he was impressed with the landfill facility’s staff for the length of time it took to reestablish service.
“We had a lot of commercial customers who really depended on the service the landfill provides and if they can’t get in the waste bins, all of a sudden they have a problem, so we worked quite hard and the job was to restore service to our clients,” Ryan said.
He added the best place to go regarding any concerns is the BVWMC website, bvwaste.ca, as a list of contact numbers can be found.
