Condos destroyed by fire

Above: A Legal Firefighter is seen through the remnants of a destroyed garage off 101 Avenue Saturday afternoon. crew from Morinville, Legal and St. Albert battled a condo blaze on 101 Avenue that destroyed four units. – Stephen Dafoe Photo

Below: – A video of our pictures from Saturday’s fire.

A compilation of pictures from Saturday's sad condominium fire. Our sincerest thanks to crews who worked hard to save neighbouring homes while battling this blaze. Thanks also to alert Morinville News readers who sent us info on the fire.

Posted by MorinvilleNews.com on Saturday, 11 July 2015

If you do not see the video, please click here.

by Morinville News Staff

A fire destroyed a row of condominium units on 101 Avenue and a neighbouring house’s garage Saturday afternoon. Morinville Fire Department was assisted by crews from Legal and St. Albert in battling the blaze.

Fire Chief Brad Boddez, in speaking to Morinville News around 7 p.m. Saturday night as crews were containing the fire, said the fire was fully involved when he arrived on scene. At that time, the back of the east bank of condominiums in the northern two units and the neighbouring house’s garage were in flames.

“We knocked the fire down in the garage and the roof of the [condo],” Boddez said, adding the fire had burned completely through units 3 and 4.

Morinville’s Ladder 4 had been attacking the east side of the building from above while ground crews from Morinville and Legal worked the operation from below. Once St. Albert’s ladder truck arrived, the operation was able to attack the remaining two units from above on opposite sides to contain the fire.

Chief Boddez said the eastern condominium block is a write-off, although it is too soon to estimate the value of the damage. “We’ve got fire damage. We’ve got smoke damage. We have water damage,” he said, noting he was thankful crews were able to protect neighbouring properties.

Although Fire Investigator, Chief Ron Cust said the fire is still under investigation, he has narrowed things down based on talking to eye-witnesses at the scene.

“We’ll have to investigate further the details regarding the exact location,” Cust said, adding eye-witnesses indicate the fire started on the east side of the building on a balcony of one of the units, just above the garage. “The fire proceeded from there and made its way through the other units.”

Chief Boddez said 14 pieces of apparatus and 38 personnel were on scene for Saturday’s call. Mutual aid was provided by St. Albert Fire Department with their ladder truck and four crew members, Legal Fire Department was on scene with five members. Two AHS units with four members as well as local peace officers and local RCMP were on scene. The Morinville Fire Department had five units and 21 members on hand.

“Everyone did an amazing job and what a great save for our community,” Boddez said Saturday night. “I’m very proud of all our firefighters and emergency services personnel.”

Crews on scene told Morinville News everyone was safely evacuated from the building.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

2 Comments

  1. An outstanding job was done by the Morinville, Legal, & St.Albert departments to minimize the further loss of property. Thankfully no one was hurt in this tragedy.

  2. Awesome job by all emergency response teams involved with this on Saturday and into Sunday morning. Containing this was amazing, especially considering the close proximity to neighboring properties and structures. Thank goodness for our dedicated volunteers and mutual aid from our neighboring communities, it spells TEAMWORK that’s much appreciated.

Comments are closed.