A fire overnight at the Balzac Meats building north of Calgary completely destroyed the facility.
Emergency crews were called to the scene before midnight on Friday.
Rocky View Fire Services district chief Bill Clarke said that it was an employee who alerted emergency crews to the blaze.
By the time emergency crews arrived, the building was engulfed in flames. Clarke said that the fact that the building is older and made of wood, it was hard to stop the fire from spreading.
Mike Hickey witnsessed the fire. He told 770 CHQR that he was driving into Calgary at around 11:35 p.m. on Friday night to pick up his kids when he saw emergency crews.
Hickey said on the way home, he drove by again and more emergency crews were on scene.
“By that time there was a fire-truck with a big water tank arriving and a significant amount of fire-trucks, police cars and ambulances on site.”
He described the fire as massive.
“It was beyond big,” Hickey said. “It must have been their quonset or something other than just their house because the size of the flames and the amount of the flames. It was bright and the flames were huge.”
Rod McLeod owns Balzac Meats and said it’s a blessing nobody was hurt in the blaze but the company lost all of its product.
“We were completely loaded. Unfortunately, it is in season so we were full to capacity. This is our busiest time of the year.”
McLeod said that they likely will not be rebuilding the facility but it’s still too early to say for sure.
“This land is owned by a developer. We don’t own the property, we just leased. We knew we didn’t have an endless amount of time here due to the fact we don’t own the property. To rebuild this facility would be a massive undertaking.”
None of the livestock in the area was harmed.
Balzac Meats has been around for 40 years and plays a big role in fundraising for at least 50 community groups and schools.
There’s no word on the cause of the blaze, however, officials said it is not suspicious.
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