Where there was smoke, there was a fire that roared for three days in Medicine Hat.
The Moore’s Furniture store, a building on the 500 block of Second Street SE, was worth $200,000-300,000 and stocked with approximately $200,000 worth of furniture before burning to the ground after a sudden blaze broke out Friday, Jan. 15, 1965.
Deluxe Taxi driver Bob Melbourne was driving by the building and he did not see fire but instead saw smoke billowing out the front of the store at approximately 12:30 a.m.
The blaze was believed have to broken out in the basement, crowded with stock, especially mattresses, before it swept through the building and up an elevator shaft.
The fire department responded with 25 men, all available except four who remained at the fire hall in case of another emergency.
The News is looking back at notable events from Medicine Hat’s history as we enter our 141st publishing year.
Fire chief Len Morris told the News at the time two of his men, equipped with gas masks, were in the basement when flames “mushroomed up around them.”
Not noticing the outbreak, they did not attempt to escape “until we hollered and hollered at them,” Morris said.
The fire was believed to be contained around 2 a.m. before it mushroomed up again, Morris said. At 4:30 a.m. they feared it would spread to Val Marshall’s Printing store, but the fire department contained the blaze to the furniture store.
The printing store, spared from the blaze, suffered water damage estimated to be around $25,000, according to Marshall.
“They don’t make buildings like that one anymore,” W.A. Gilroy, manager of the furniture store, told the News. He said the store had solid laminated floors and the walls were brick.
By 9 a.m., the floors and roof were destroyed and only the walls remained.
Gilroy said the store had recently received a large shipment of stock for a sale they were about to hold.
The fire continued to burn through the weekend, with firefighters and public service work crews pumping 500 gallons of water each minute into the wreckage.
Sunday afternoon, the fire described at the time as one of the city’s worst, came to an end. Morris said in that Monday’s News there had been no sign of smoke coming from the gutted shell of the four-story store since Sunday. All hoses leading into the building were removed Sunday after firemen stopped pouring water into the store at 2 p.m. Saturday.
“It will be some time before the investigation into the cause of the fire is complete,” Morris said.
Although the fire was believed to be extinguished, two firemen were kept on an around-the-clock watch for any outbreaks.
In the May 29, 1965 News, H.A. Moore, presidents of the furniture company said action was being considered but he could not yet say what the plans were. No further update was found in News archives.
