A tower of black smoke billowed out of a burning garage and fifth wheel on 108 Ave. Thursday afternoon.
Firefighters were called to the area around 3:30 p.m. May 18 as community peace officers and police cordoned off 103A Street from traffic. An EMS crew who were passing through Westlock arrived at the scene and were on stand by.
The garage of Allan and Linda Grove had exploded into flames and jumped to their shed. The fire gutted the fifth wheel of neighbours Gayl and Clarence Weiss and burnt down nearby phone lines.
No one was injured.
Fire chief Stuart Koflick said the cause was determined to be non-suspicious, although there is still an ongoing investigation.
“Most likely an appliance was the culprit,” he said. “Based on the observations at the scene and evidence at the scene, it points to an appliance.”
While emergency responders attempted to reach the scene, the public gathered on lawns and sidewalks, or parked their cars in the middle of the street.
“I just want to mention that our response efforts were certainly delayed due to the fact of the amount of public rushing to the scene,” Koflick said. “If you see smoke, call 911 and stay away from the area. Emergency scenes are dangerous to the public. If our response efforts are hampered, that puts the public in danger.”
As fire crews worked to extinguish what was left of the blaze, the Groves sat on their front step with their family.
“Good thing it wasn’t an attached garage,” Linda Grove said. “We would not have had a house.”
The Grove’s son Trevor had just picked up his daughter from school and grabbed the mail when he saw the black smoke coming from the general direction of his parents’ place and the Weiss’.
“We spun up here and I turned the corner and thought, ‘Holy crap, that’s Mr. Weiss’ fifth wheel,’” Trevor said. “I parked at the end of back alley, opened the door, got out of the car and I’m like, ‘Oop, that’s my parents’ garage. Dad you better come home!’”
Linda said they were out in Rochester at their son’s acreage when they got the call.
“We were going camping this week,” she said.
The Groves lost a vehicle and $40,000 worth of tools, and were left with nothing but burnt timbers for a garage and a scorched shed.
“It’s material things,” she said. “Nobody was hurt.”
Allan said they had empty propane tanks in the garage, but the only thing live was a little bar fridge and a garage door opener.
Allan said a neighbour who was mowing the lawn first noticed the fire and phoned 911.
“He came over and hammered on the house to see if we’re home, couldn’t get an answer,” he said. “They were worried about the dog, but we had her with us.”
Next door, Clarence and Gayl Weiss lost their fifth wheel to the flames.
Clarence was in the house when he heard the explosions.
“There were two bangs and I went out to the back and I saw in the garage a couple flames had already hit,” he said. “I was thinking of taking my boat and hooking it up to my fifth wheel. That would be so stupid. It was pretty quick.”
Gayl Weiss said she was out having coffee with a friend at the time.
“My son called me when he got home from work and he said, ‘Don’t be alarmed when you come because the fire trucks are here,’ and he said the neighbour’s garage exploded,” she recalled. “He said, ‘Your trailer, there’s nothing left of it,’ so I came home.”
Their garage was not damaged but neither the Groves nor the Weiss’ were allowed back in their homes until the smoke was thoroughly out.
Luckily, the Weiss’ had no plans to use their fifth wheel for the long weekend.
“We were just going to go in this weekend and go through and see what we needed to put in it and get ready for another time,” Gayl said. “I try and remember what was all in there for the insurance because I hadn’t been in it yet this year and we leave the dishes and the bedding and all that stuff. That’s why you have insurance I guess.”
The Weiss boat was not damaged, though there was some damage to the tarp.
Koflick said the fire department was called back to the scene Friday morning due a rekindle on the garage.
“The unfortunate part, it was in the area with an electrical line,” he said. “Due to the location of power line involved, we had to wait on suppression efforts until Fortis arrived on scene.”
He said the power pole had quite a bit of damage and about 500 customers were affected by the outage when the crews shut off the power as a safety precaution.
Shaw was also on scene early Friday morning repairing the phone and cable lines.
