The fire in Radville has destroyed two businesses in that community, caused severe damage to a third, and had impacts throughout downtown Radville Sunday night, as a fire claimed the Long Creek Saloon and a neighbouring restaurant.
Darryl Fergason is the deputy fire chief in Radville. He confirmed there were no injuries in the blaze, and they are still looking into the cause of the fire, which he said started around 12:30 a.m. Crews spent the night battling the fire and were continuing to douse the hot spots in the remnants of the buildings as the sun rose.
“The Ceylon Fire Department came over and helped us, and we had a couple of local farmers come in with water trucks for us,” said Ferguson as he took a moment from the night-long battle against the fire. “A couple of water trucks from local town folks here too.”
The fire was hot enough to melt the siding on a building across the street to the west of the saloon. Crews sprayed water on buildings to the south to prevent them from being damaged by the heat, but the windows would end up breaking due to the drastic shift in temperature.
“We can’t thank enough, you know, the farmers in the community, the businesses, for, you know, water trucks because we... that takes a whole bunch of water to supply,” said Radville’s mayor, Rene Bourassa, who noted the town is already having concerns with the water supply.
Around 10 residents of the town, and the surrounding area, came out with water trucks to assist in battling the blaze. In all, Bourassa said there were around 50 people who were helping to contain the fire.
The weather conditions were also favourable. Bourassa noted if there was a strong wind, things would have been drastically different.
“If that would have been a heavy wind, it could have took the whole main street out, right from the Bank of Commerce right down to the train station,” Bourassa shared.
On social media, residents of Radville were posting the images they captured of the fire and shared their memories of the local establishment.
The fire itself comes just weeks after the Town of Radville officially opened their new town office after its old one was claimed in a fire in November of 2022.