Lethbridge firefighters respond to a fire Tuesday afternoon at The Gardens seniors complex in the westside neighbourhood of West Highlands.--LETHBRIDGE HERALD PHOTO IAN MARTENS
Tijana Martin & Nick Kuhl
Lethbridge Herald
LETHBRIDGE
All 140 residents of a westside seniors complex are believed to have been safely evacuated, and no major injuries were reported after a fire tore through part of the building Tuesday afternoon.
About 35 Lethbridge firefighters responded to a fire at The Gardens complex on Garry Drive W. just past 3 p.m. and crews remained on scene for several hours.
“We arrived to heavy smoke and fire on what you can see is the northeast corner of this building,” said Roy Pollmuller, deputy chief for Lethbridge.
“We sustained pretty heavy fire, smoke and water damage to about a quarter of this building; heavy fire damage to at least three of the apartments. We’ve done a complete primary and secondary search of the entire building and we’re pretty confident that we’ve completed that secondary search. We’re working with the managers and Red Cross to account for all the residents.
“Some residents left on their own accord before they were catalogued on the intake, but we don’t have any reports of any missing residents at this time.”
An official cause had yet to be determined as of Tuesday evening. Fire operations personnel are conducting an environmental assessment on the air quality to determine a re-entry plan for the non-damaged units.
“They need to go apartment to apartment, hallway to hallway, and do a full air-quality assessment of this building before we let anyone else in,” said Pollmuller.
About 50 of the evacuated residents were sheltered at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints next door and were provided with food, water and conversation.
“When these old people get displaced like that, they’re confused and really upset. So, our missionaries are just kind of settling them down, making them feel a little bit better; that things will be OK,” said Steve Miles, a mission president with the LDS Church.
Joe Paul, a member of the LDS from Salt Lake City, Utah, said he was evacuating residents before the first responders arrived on scene.
“I noticed there was smoke coming out of the top of the building here, so myself and a couple of our people ran over and went into the building and started getting people out,” said Paul.
“When I first went in, there wasn’t too much smoke, but I hit a door that had closed automatically from the fire and as soon as I opened that, I noticed there was smoke behind it. I couldn’t tell if there was still people in there, so I grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall in case I had to use it to put myself out if I got on fire, but I went in and started going into rooms and started pulling people out,” he said.
“I probably evacuated 50 people out of the different rooms and then health-care people started showing up; they didn’t even know the place was on fire. A lot of residents didn’t know it was on fire.”
He said he believes the fire started on a balcony on the top floor.
“The sprinklers were going off inside the building, but the fire started outside the building, so they weren’t providing any relief. Until the fire department showed up, there was really no fire extinguisher efforts.”
Darcy Kloepper’s grandmother lives at the complex. He was on his way to Safeway when he saw smoke coming from the building.
“I parked in the church parking lot, ran around and saw nobody outside the building,” Kloepper said.
“I ran inside to the fourth floor to check my Oma. Her TV was on, room empty, so I went down the side stairway. I helped a lady named Mabel downstairs from the third floor, helped another lady from the second floor, then went outside and found my Oma. I sat with her until she went to the church.”
