The investigation into what caused Thursday’s fire at Banff’s Mount Royal Hotel continued Friday morning as the smoke settled.
Fire officials said 12 of the hotel’s 135 rooms have been completely destroyed.
Watch below from Dec. 29: A quick thinking Mountie is being credited with saving nearly 300 people from a Banff Hotel. The Mount Royal Hotel went up in flames early Thursday morning. Global’s Tony Tighe reports.
The focus on Friday was returning guests’ belongings.
“We hope, for those rooms and those guests, to be able to have those items returned to them this afternoon.”
Watch below: Global viewer Andrew Young sent in this video of the fire at the historic Mount Royal Hotel in Banff
Banff RCMP acting detachment commander Sgt. Stan Andronyk said to date, there’s been no indication the fire is suspicious, so it’s been turned over to fire officials to investigate.
He said the sidewalk directly in front of the hotel is blocked off and remains closed.
Andronyk said the crews involved in fighting the blaze did a fantastic job.
“RCMP members did help an elderly lady down…she was not very mobile so they ended up putting her in a wheelchair and carrying her down the stairs because she wasn’t able to walk very quickly and it was turning into an urgent situation,” he said.
“From spotting the actual fire, to responding quickly and just making sure everyone was out of the building–it was a phenomenal job to clear out.”
Investigators are also assessing damage to the street-front stores that have been impacted by the fire.
The closure of the affected Banff Avenue businesses and the damage to the 135 hotel rooms are coming at a bad time for the tourist town: Canada’s national parks are offering free entry in 2017 to celebrate Canada’s 150th birthday.
Andronyk said RCMP are planning for the influx of visitors accordingly.
With files from Jayme Doll
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