Alliance’s day of celebration ends with historic hotel fire
Well before dawn on Sunday, Alliance fire chief Carl Cameron stood in the cold at Mayor Muriel Fankhanel’s door, delivering the bad news.
“I have to tell you that we lost the hotel,” he told her. “We couldn’t save it.”
It was the news Fankhanel was expecting. Having seen the extent of the flames licking out of the second floor of the town’s historic Commercial Hotel earlier that morning, she knew that saving the building would be nearly impossible.
She left the town’s firefighters to do their work in the winter darkness, and stayed at home, hoping for the best.
The original 911 fire call came in at 2:29 a.m., and the town’s firefighters were at the scene within minutes.
It had been a big night in the community. Saturday was Santa Daze, and there had been a Christmas market, public skating and an outdoor bonfire.
The holiday party was also a celebration of the town’s brand new arena, built after their old one collapsed under heavy snow in January 2011.
It’s not yet known exactly when — or how — the fire at the hotel started, but Cameron said the whole top floor of the building was already engulfed in flames by the time firefighters arrived.
“I felt shock, kind of like it’s got to be a nightmare,” Cameron said, describing seeing the building in flames.
“But, at the end of the day, it set in: We’re going to lose the hotel.”
With the fire raging, the crew of 25 volunteer firefighters from Alliance and nearby towns quickly turned their efforts to saving other buildings, including the bank and the town office, both of which were in danger from the blaze.
As the hotel burned, flaming embers fell onto the town, fizzling out on snow-covered roofs and white-tipped trees. The heat from the fire melted the snow from other buildings on Main Street.
For those, like Cameron, who have lived their entire lives in Alliance, it will be hard to imagine the community without the Commercial Hotel.
The two-storey, eight-room hotel was one of the first buildings in the railway town.
Alliance, population 170, is 210 kilometres southeast of Edmonton.