Elevator goes up in flames

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This article was published 07/05/2025 (323 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A beloved grain elevator burned to the ground early Tuesday morning in Waskada, despite the efforts of more than 40 firefighters who responded from three different communities to battle the blaze.

The fire was just too massive, said Carson Spence of the Waskada and Area Fire Department.

“It was unbelievable,” Spence told the Sun in a phone interview late Tuesday afternoon. “It was just like a snowstorm of fire and ashes coming down. And all we could do was keep watch.

“We protected our Co-op store and watered down all the buildings around it. But embers blew into our park and burned the picnic tables there.”

No injuries were reported in the fire, which was reported shortly after 5:20 a.m. The burning building collapsed at about 8:30 a.m.

The cause of the fire has not been identified, but some people on the scene said they suspected that lightning from Monday night’s thunderstorm may have played a part.

It was Spence’s son, five-year-old Oscar, who alerted his parents — both of them firefighters — about the elevator fire. He came into their bedroom and woke them up.

“It was 20 after five, and he said, ‘Mom, the elevator’s on fire.’ So she got up and looked and then yelled at me right away. Flames were rolling out the top, the very peak of the elevator. It was a huge fire,” Spence said.

“So I called 911 and sent a text to the chief of Deloraine’s fire department and said we’re going to need some help, and then my wife and I were off to the fire hall.”

Jerry Redden, Deloraine’s fire chief, said members of the Melita and Area Fire Department also raced to Waskada to do what they could to keep the fire from spreading.

“When we got there, it was still standing, so we worked together with Melita and Waskada to figure out a plan, and we concentrated on the perimeter,” Redden told the Sun in a phone interview from the scene.

About three hours after the blaze started, the elevator caved in, said Waskada resident Don Wickham.

“The flames were probably 150 feet above it when it collapsed. It was burning pretty good,” Wickham said.

“A local farmer was leasing it; it was his grain storage. So, when the fire got halfway down, the grain was just billowing through the side of it,” said Wickham.

Once the burning structure was on the ground, fire crews were able to get a handle on putting out the flames, said Spence.

“There were two track hoes tearing it apart and we added water to everything as it was being pulled out — just hosed it all down. And wow, it was hot. It was amazingly hot,” Spence said.

Almost 12 hours after the blaze started, fire crews were only dealing with a few spots that were still smouldering. A fire investigator was on scene while the elevator was still burning.

While no cause has been released, Spence noted there was a “nasty, wicked storm that came through” Waskada Monday night, with a “lot of lightning.” The rain that fell may have saved the town, he added.

“It would have burned the whole town if it didn’t rain last night. And if we had Monday’s wind, it would have burned every house in town.

“It’s sad to see the elevator go, but nobody got hurt — that’s the main thing.”

The wooden elevator was built in September 1961 by Manitoba Pool Elevators to replace an elevator that had been destroyed by fire three months earlier, according to Manitoba Historical Society and Archives.

The Pool emblem was replaced by Agricore, which closed the elevator in 2000, but that company’s logo was still on it when it was leased by the local Waskada farmer.

At one time, there were more than 700 wooden grain elevators in Manitoba, but after Tuesday’s fire, there are now only 115, the historical society’s Gordon Goldsborough told the Sun.

Manitoba Hydro cut power to the area for about three hours as a precaution, in case the fire spread to any power lines, said media relations officer Peter Chura. Crews disconnected the line leading to the grain elevator, away from the utility pole.

“Other than the line leading to the grain elevator, there was no damage to any other Hydro equipment, and we restored power to the area as soon as it was safe to do so,” Chura told the Sun in an email.

Losing the elevator is going to hit everyone hard, in town and in neighbouring communities, said Municipality of Brenda-Waskada Reeve Maurice Saltel.

“You look around and you watch the faces of people, the people who grew up here and have been around that elevator all their lives,” Saltel said.

“For them, it was a pretty traumatic event, just because it represents a significant change, believe it or not, in their lives,” he said.

Saltel added his appreciation for the “high level of co-ordination” that was shown by Waskada and Area Fire Department and all the community departments that responded.

“I’m really very proud of all of the surrounding fire chiefs and firefighters. Just no hesitation, and they’re here. All the training that happens unseen paid off, and nobody was hurt.”

As Saltel spoke to the Sun on his office speaker phone, he got up to look out the window at where the elevator once stood.

“Elevators on the Prairies have symbolic importance,” he said. “I think that for everyone who grew up on the Prairies, they knew they were home when they saw their elevator. And there’s one less elevator in our Prairies today.”

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