First there was a large brush fire near Ghost Lake, which broke out around 1 p.m. on Thursday. Then, around 6 p.m., another fire in a townhouse complex in Cochrane’s Heartland neighbourhood erupted, leaving six families homeless.
With fire crews from the Cochrane’s single fire station already on scene of the brush fire, the town’s firefighters were forced to call in help from nearby departments in Calgary and Redwood Meadows.
“Six families were immediately evacuated,” said Jared Wallace, interim fire chief with Cochrane Fire Services.
While the resident of one townhome told Global News the fire started when his barbecue “basically just exploded,” Wallace said investigators are still working to determine exactly what happened.
“It’s starting to indicate that perhaps the fire started on the outside of the building and then worked its way inside.”
Two large fires burning at the same time, along with Cochrane’s booming population — an increase of 22.8 per cent over the past five years — is prompting calls from some of the town’s residents for Cochrane to invest in more firefighting resources.
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“It’s quite concerning” said Madison Tolton, who has lived in Cochrane for 20 years.
“I think if they had more resources that I would feel better,” said Tolton. “How are they able to get the resources to be able to put out those fires? They don’t have enough people or resources.”
With others expressing similar concerns online, the mayor of Cochrane, Morgan Nagel, told Global News the town is working on a plan.
“The real challenge is that Cochrane has just been growing so quickly and over the past few years, the municipal government has been having a hard time keeping up with all the pressures created by our growth,” said Nagle.
“Growth has long been seen as this financial opportunity for municipal governments to attract more tax dollars, but the reality that we’ve seen on the ground is all the growth coming to Cochrane has been a major burden and we’re struggling to keep up with all of our infrastructure.”
Nagel said the town recently purchased two large storage units — “like a great big garage” — that it’s working to convert into a satellite fire hall, rather than build a brand new traditional fire hall.
It “is going to save us well over $10 million and it’s also going to help us deliver upon our fire much faster, because if we were to build a whole new fire hall the estimation is as high as $15 million to acquire the land build the facility, but also it would take years to finish,” said Nagel.
While there is no timeframe yet for when the new satellite firehall will be operational, Nagel says it will be in an ideal location, on a corner lot, right on the highway on the edge of town.
Nagel said when his family first moved to Cochrane it had a population of about 10,000 people.
The 2025 provincial census put the population at 39,397.
Last year, Nagel said, the town’s population increased by 6.5 per cent — double the national average.
While one firefighter who responded to Thursday’s townhouse fire suffered minor injuries, luckily none of the residents were injured.
They’re being put up in local hotels for the time being.
The brush fire was brought under control around 8 p.m. on Thursday.
Cochrane has always let developers build houses without thinking about infrastructure. The Fire Dept. is a typical example – they are an excellent fire dept. but badly lack another firehall and equipment. I have lived in Cochrane for nearly 50 years.