Alberta (Canada) House Fire

House Fire, Sylvan Lake, Alberta.
May 19, 2010

I went for a day at the beach, saw smoke and drove towards it to find this.

Thankfully, nobody was hurt. The wind turned this thing into an inferno. It was 5 pm and the end of a hot (31C) day and there was a pretty strong land breeze affecting the area. The fire grew FAST and was super hot. I could feel the radiant heat quite strongly from where I stood, about 100M from the house.

Watching the flames engulf something so familiar was unsettling. Dogs barked out the cries of their owners, who stood slack-jawed and motionless, much like myself. Some women wiped away tears, while most of the men stood by stoically, making ominous predictions whilst confirming their recent suspicions with head-shaking and words like "Whoa" or "There it goes." Children were visibly upset, most of them crying and wailing aloud, while teenagers ran or biked around excitedly, talking amongst themselves about how crazy this was while taking every opportunity they could to insert profanity into their accounts in order to underline the seriousness of the event. No doubt, for most of the people watching that day, this wasn't just a non-fatal house fire, to be reckoned with mostly by insurance companies and lawyers. I think that this fire must have appeared to the residents of this neighborhood much as I suspect it to did the children and the dogs; that is as a monster, eating a neighborhood whole, in real life.

I have a new appreciation for the responsibility of fire fighters for sure. Thanks to the men and women who contained this beast so that a neighborhood could be saved to be rebuilt and thrive in peace again.

We take a lot for granted in this country. Aren't you glad you pay your taxes? :)

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Comment by FFN WebTeam on May 24, 2010 at 3:09pm: Comments under this video are that of the videographer and not FFN Webteam.

Comment by Brett Walker on May 24, 2010 at 2:52pm: Kathy Williams: You might want to check out the local newspaper online for those aftermath photos. I don't know if Sylvan Lake has a volunteer department as they are a seasonal community (the population triples in the summer time), but you could also ask the local department, too!

Comment by Brett Walker on May 24, 2010 at 2:50pm: Those are good, constructive criticisms Jeff Cole! I am from Alberta. And our procedures are to have one guy hook the hydrant. We are a volunteer department and I remember that on my first hydrant hit in anger one of my captains came over and helped me do it as he is pretty high energy and is hands on. But usually we are a one person - one task department, until it comes to interior attack. We are usually so stretched for manpower that we can't afford anything more.

Comment by Kathy Williams on May 22, 2010 at 12:03pm: Are there any aftermath photos i.e. showing damage to other houses? What started the fire?

Comment by Kathy Williams on May 20, 2010 at 10:29pm: The comments above by the FNN WebTeam on May 20, 2010 at 7:18 am is well written and paints a good picture of what went on. I don't hear any woman making comments on this video, so I think the woman Dennis Hiscock is referring to is in the video (I saw it on STATter 911) with the man and woman in the truck or car with the cracked windshield commenting on the fire as they sat near it filming and then drove past it before the firefighters were on the scene. This other video is filled with four letter words which are unnecessary to say the least but that video is also interesting. The FNN WebTeam video above (at least on the page I'm commenting in the box on, it is above and is the video entitled Alberta (Canada) House Fire, is very good and is clean (no bad language) and illustrates the magnitude of this event. I don't know why the paint didn't peel off the fire engine parked so close to the blaze while it melted the siding off nearby houses. This close proximity of houses to each other on this street is why I refused to buy a house with a similar street layout, where each house is only 10 feet or so away from the one next door. The popping sounds are apparently tires blowing out on the car that caught fire. What a tragedy and I'm glad no one was hurt, including firefighters.

Comment by Dennis Hiscock on May 20, 2010 at 6:40pm: i've watched all of the footage i think....i really disapprove of the woman who took the footage and her comments towards the fire fighter(s) who responded....at 5pm its rush hour so that would probably explain the response time the crews had to face....it's obvious that the woman who took this has no idea what is going on....thats my thoughts on it anyways

Comment by Jeff Cole on May 20, 2010 at 9:00am: I'll be the first to jump in. I hate to be critical but....3 FF's tied up at a hydrant, taking how long to establish a supply line? How about just making the k -turn, backing down, and reverse laying? At least you could have left a two or three more engine personnel at the fire, I dunno, maybe stretching another line???