WESTLOCK - The cause of an early-morning inferno that destroyed a three-story four-plex in Westlock in mid-June has been deemed “undetermined” and the file has been handed over to the RCMP for further investigation.
An Aug. 9 release posted to the Town of Westlock Fire Department's Facebook page and attributed to chief Stuart Koflick states their investigation has been unable to determine the cause of the June 19 blaze, which gutted the building located at 9819 – 100th Street. On Aug. 18 the building was finally torn down.
“There are some missing pieces that we’re hoping that the RCMP can maybe look into to kind of put the puzzle together,” said Koflick in a follow-up Aug. 13 interview. “Undetermined could be accidental, but we don’t have those pieces of the puzzle. It could be suspicious, but we don’t have those pieces of the puzzle.
“I don’t want to go into too many details on what was found at the scene, or the reason we’ve made the decision to forward it on to the RCMP because I don’t want to compromise their investigation. I’m going to say our file is closed, but the report has been written in such a way that should further evidence come forward we can re-examine the fire cause.”
Town of Westlock firefighters were called to the building around 2:30 a.m. Saturday, June 19 and found the front fully-engulfed in flames — the building contained two basement suites and a pair of above-ground units. Two occupants of the building were already out when crews arrived and were unharmed, while the only other person living in the building was not at home.
Five Westlock County firefighters, as well as a county fire truck, joined the 11-member complement from the town and were able to get the fire under control in about 45 minutes.
In addition to the four-plex being gutted, the siding on the home to the west was also scorched.
Koflick said as per National Fire Protection Association protocols, there are four categories investigators can select as a cause — accidental, natural, incendiary (intentional) and undetermined.
“If an investigator cannot conclusively put an ignition sequence of events together then we’re limited to undetermined,” the chief explained. “We investigate the where, the how, the what and the RCMP are more of the who and the why, if there’s a who and a why.
“We use a scientific process that starts off with identifying the problem, gathering data, evaluating the data and developing a hypothesis. We test the hypothesis and then we come to a conclusion. So we’re at the end of our investigative process and we’ve given the file to the RCMP.”
Westlock RCMP Corp. Leigh Drinkwater said Aug. 13 they’ll use the file from the fire department, which includes the point of origin of the blaze, and conduct follow up interviews.
“We’re not the experts when it comes to fire. We’ll be following up with the occupants with subsequent interviews,” said Drinkwater.
