Four homes destroyed in Claresholm fire, but no one injured

Mar 29, 2021 | 1:11 PM

CLARESHOLM, AB – A massive grassfire Sunday shook up the community of Claresholm, but officials say it could have easily been much worse.

Derrick Krizsan, CAO with the M.D. of Willow Creek, says it burned around 6,500 hectares of land.

The fire was started in an area south of the town, but due to the windy and dry conditions, it quickly spread to the northeast.

“Four dwellings were destroyed in the fire and one of them was unoccupied, the other three were occupied. In addition to those dwellings, there was a large number of agricultural structures that were impacted.”

Residents in the three occupied houses were either not at home at the time or were safely evacuated. Krizsan says there have been no reports of injuries at this time.

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Local firefighters were assisted by crews from the County of Vulcan, Foothills County, Alberta Forestry, the County of Lethbridge, RCMP, and Alberta Health Services.

“Dozens and dozens of landowners and individuals came out with tractors and water trucks to help support fire operations. It was a great community effort.”

“It was quite clear that the impact that those fire suppression efforts had on the extent that the fire was able to be limited to – it was a very very large fire, but without the incredible coordination of our fire services and our multi-agency task force, it would’ve been a much larger event.”

The fire is all but put out now, but crews remain on scene to douse any remaining hot spots and to keep the blaze from flaring up again.

by David Opinko