ATHABASCA – Between 6:56 p.m. and 7:08 p.m. last Wednesday night, Aug. 11, the fire that destroyed the vacant downtown building that formerly contained the local hardware store, went from barely visible smoke to one of the largest fires in Athabasca’s history.
The first emergency call regarding a structure fire just north of the Highway 2 and Highway 55 intersection (50th St. And 50th Ave.), known locally as the old Home Hardware building, directly west of Riverfront Park, came in at 6:50 p.m. Members of the Athabasca Fire Department arrived shortly after and were soon joined by RCMP and EMS, Athabasca County Fire Services crews from Colinton and Grassland, and from the Village of Boyle.
“The first engine with four members arrived on scene within six minutes of the call and found that the fire had already spread through the interior of the building,” said Athabasca fire chief Travis Shalapay in an Aug. 15 media release.
“In total, 22 firefighters and seven apparatus responded to the call for mutual aid, bolstering the 12 town firefighters and apparatus already on scene. After a challenging battle the fire was declared under control shortly before midnight and the last of the mutual aid partners was released shortly thereafter. Athabasca crews remained on scene through the night and following day mopping up hot spots that remained.”
The building has been vacant since the new Home Hardware building opened in 2019, though it is a well-known place for some of the community’s unhoused to illegally congregate.
An Aug. 12 media release from Athabasca RCMP stated: “At this time, it is believed no one was harmed by the fire … Provincial fire investigators have been engaged to assist in this investigation.”
RCMP are also asking for witnesses or anyone who may have dashcam or surveillance footage of the area before the fire to come forward to assist in the investigation. They can call the local detachment at 780-675-5122 or Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).
The timeline
About five minutes before firefighters were notified, just across the street, Kirstyn Veenstra was taking a short break from her job at Equilibrium Cannabis. She and a co-worker had opened the back door for some fresh air, but that’s not exactly what they found.
“We smelled smoke immediately after we opened the door. We stayed back there for a few minutes and then noticed the smoke coming up from behind the building. We went back inside after we saw the smoke, and I called 911 for a fire emergency,” she told the Advocate afterwards via Facebook.
She was told it had already been called in and that firefighters were on their way, so she relocated her vehicle and her co-worker's vehicle from the back parking lot, and closed the store soon after. She took a picture at 6:56 p.m., as the first firefighters arrived to a smoking building with the blaze still contained inside. She took another at 7:08 p.m. and the middle section of the building was completely engulfed.
“After moving the cars out of the way. We watched the fire engulf the building until it wasn’t safe to be there; ended up closing the store around 7:20 p.m.,” she said.
By then, dozens, if not 100 or more people could be seen gathering in Riverfront Park to watch the destruction and see emergency crews in action first hand as they tackled the blaze. The town’s public works crew was also called into action to set up blockades of the major intersection, as well as nearby streets and alleys, and to direct traffic.
“In the process of fighting the fire multiple fire hydrants were accessed for water supply including two on the south side of 50th Avenue which resulted in the detour of Highway 2 and 55,” said Shalapay.
The growing audience was then directed to stand further away from the scene as the direction of the wind blew the darkening smoke to the south and east.
“As the call progressed crews also experienced a wind shift which resulted in smoke and ash being pushing into the downtown core spurring the emergency alert advising residents to avoid the area,” he continued.
The commercial building across the street, which houses Equilibrium Cannabis, Glas Floral Studio, A Little Bit of Everything and the Boom 94.1 radio station was also hosed down as a precaution, though the historical train station and caboose next door were not in any danger. In fact, the Athabasca Heritage Society opened the building up to firefighters as a place to eat and rest, as many were just settling in for dinner and a restful evening as the call came in. Sal’s Famous even provided the food.
Town CAO Rachel Ramey was also called into action that night, and was stationed at one of the blockades.
“In this case, Travis phoned me and said, ‘It's big. We need help. Can you get public works to come and help block off the road?’ And he thought that I should be on scene as well,” she said.
The highways reopened just before midnight, but the immediate area was still blockaded until the very little of the structure that remained could be knocked down and the property fenced off.
The following night Ramey also stopped by the fire hall to personally thank firefighters.
“Seeing something that big, in the location it was at — I'm never at any fire scenes — so to see them do what they do and working together and working with the other departments was really amazing,” Ramey said.
The history
The fire may have been the largest the town has seen in recent memory, but it’s not the first at that location, which, being directly adjacent to the Athabasca River, and later the railway, has been a hotspot for commerce and economic opportunity long before the town was formed.
A large sawmill owned by Tutty on the site burned down in 1931, and a planer/sawmill operation owned by G.G. Fowler was started in 1943. The mid-section of the building that burned first last week was where the basement of Fowler’s building was constructed.
Fowler came to Athabasca in 1936 and expanded his sawmill operation with an Imperial Lumber yard in 1945. Sixteen to 18 million board feet of lumber were produced at that time and marketed across Canada and the U.S.
“He opened a lumber yard, and shortly after started to operate a lumber camp — Spruce Meadows — about 40 miles downriver. he purchased a large number of timber berths. At the height of his enterprise, there were 28 or more sawmills on these berths — all sawing and hauling rough lumber into Fowler's planing mill in town,” according to an early version of the Athabasca Historical Walking Tour booklet, which is kept at the Alice B. Donahue Library and Archives.
“The plant was operated by steam. It had two boilers and used shavings and sawdust for fuel. It had the capacity to turn out, daily, between 25 to 40 thousand board feet of dimensional lumber, bevel and cove siding, and v-joint.”
Fowler sold Spruce Mills to Hales H. Ross & Sons Ltd. in September 1946 and built a new mill on his river frontage. In the last week of December 1949, he sold his retail outlet to Alberta Lumber Co. He continued in the lumber industry for a few more years before selling to Joe Mikkelsen when he retired. Alberta Lumber Co. changed its name to Atlas Lumber in 1955 and Imperial Lumber moved from Athabasca in 1962.
Later, Revelstoke Companies Inc. bought the building and operated a store there until 1987 when it was sold as a Home Hardware franchise, which operated there until 2019.
In 2017, the Town of Athabasca made an offer of $500,000 on the lot, which would have expanded Riverfront Park to the west, but it was contingent on the owner demolishing the building and clearing the site. It was also well below the appraised value, and an agreement could not be reached.
In late 2020, plans for a brewhouse on the site came to town council, but costly issues with the sewer system prevented that development from proceeding any further.
In the last several weeks, a sold sign was placed on the building by a realtor, but it is unknown if that deal was finalized.
