Water supply a challenge in Springbank fire
Posted Apr 5, 2014 1:51 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
When neighbours called in to the Rocky View County Fire Dept. Friday reporting flames shooting out of the roof, fire crews knew they had a major call on their hands.
After confirming there was no one inside the home on Springbank Heights Drive, which was undergoing renovations, firefighters went on the defensive.
District Chief Dax Huba said 4,000 gallons of water were poured onto the home when crews arrived, but more was needed to get the flames under control.
He said applying enough water is the constant challenge for these types of calls as the size of acreage homes, like the one still smoldering west of Calgary, puts a strain on their resources.
“For the last three fires that we’ve done, the neighbours had phoned in and said ‘I see flames shooting out of the roof,'” he said. “These buildings are so large, once the fire has been burning that much material, it’s basically like having a single house in Cranston burning within these large houses so once it gets on fire we need so much water.”
He said crews sometimes speculate they would need 15 hoses at full force to be able to keep up with the flames, but getting enough water is not the only challenging element.
“The high winds make it difficult and especially in the area of Springbank, some of these places are on top of hills or in valleys and it just seems to amplify the wind that we get blowing through there,” he said.
“It’s really important right now as the weather starts to warm up and a lot of the snow starts to melt, that we don’t leave any hotspots to blow embers.”
Cochrane Fire was called in to help in Friday’s blaze.
The cause of the fire is still unknown.
