EDMONTON – Fire investigators have determined that the March 15 fire at the Windermere condo development was deliberately set.
The fire caused $6 million in damages to the Essence at Windermere South condo development, which was under construction at the time.
Edmonton Fire Rescue Services has handed the case over to the Edmonton Police Service.
Emergency crews arrived at the condo – near 10 Avenue and 173 Street southwest – around 3:30 a.m. on Saturday, March 15.
Roughly 12 fire trucks and 50 firefighters responded.
GALLERY: Fire at southwest condo development
No one was injured in the blaze.
Eight homes on the west side of the condo project were evacuated as a precaution.
“We could actually feel heat through the house,” said Albert Wong, who lives nearby.
“We looked outside and thought, ‘oh, it’s morning already.’ Actually, it’s not, there’s a whole huge ball of fire outside.”
Crews let the fire burn out and worked to stop it from spreading to nearby buildings.
“Something like this, if there’s no risk of life in the structure, we’re going to contain it and try to minimize the damage to nearby structures, surround and drown as we call it,” said District Fire Chief Trevor Whyte.
The developer, Cove Properties, said out of the 79 units in the complex, 50 were sold.
Shortly after the fire, Cove Properties released a statement saying “from the initial review of the footage captured by our security cameras on site, it appears an individual broke into our building early Saturday morning and set one or more fires inside.”
The following day, the developer said he could no longer comment since the EPS was investigating.
On Monday, the EPS released a short statement, saying it was formally taking over the investigation.
The EPS added that the investigation is in its preliminary stages, and “details will be released by EPS Arson Unit detectives when they become available.”
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