Swan River arson fire knocks out radio stations across region

Several Westman radio stations were down after an arson fire in Swan River Thursday morning severely damaged the master control facility for the region.

Swan River RCMP are searching for a man believed to have started the fire, which the business owner says he believes was a targeted attack.

Police say a preliminary investigation determined the cause of the fire to be incendiary.

The fire broke out in the building on the 500 block of Main Street shortly after a man riding a bicycle passed the property, RCMP said in a news release Friday. The unknown man was seen on video surveillance from the area.

Crews arrived at the scene at about 5:20 a.m. and “observed extensive smoke emanating from the building, with significant damage to the interior,” the release said.

Radio station CJ104 Swan River’s office and the master control facility suffered damage, and most of the equipment inside was destroyed, station owner Bill Gade told the Sun.

Gade said because the building houses the master control facility, radio stations in Swan River, Virden, Gimli and Esterhazy, Sask., were all down.

A radio station in Neepawa runs on a backup, he said, although he doesn’t know how long it will last.

“Pretty much all of it’s destroyed,” Gade said Friday. “Lots of it is melted. But the stuff that isn’t melted, we’re trying to at least get some of it to turn on so we can get some signals on some of these stations, because right now, the whole network is off.”

He said he hopes the stations will be back on air by the end of the weekend.

The business always carries replacement equipment for one station, because lightning can hit a transmitter at any time.

Gade said the first employee usually starts work at 5 a.m., but thankfully the substitute worker scheduled for Thursday was coming in late.

“There just would have been no way out, and if they got out, they would have been burning. They would have been covered in burning gas. There’s just nothing they could have done. They either would have died quick, or they would have died slow. Just a question of how fast,” he said.

“I’ve seen the videos, the entire room splashed with burning gas.”

Gade said he believes the attack was targeted, after one of the station’s Facebook posts last week received backlash from the community.

The post was about a man who died in a car crash, and the victim’s criminal history was posted alongside it.

Gade said that’s how news works, and that if Bill Cosby died, news outlets wouldn’t just report on his acting fame, they would also mention his criminal history.

A large portion of the more than 400 comments on the post have cast shame on Gade.

“It’s absolutely horrible,” he said. “There’s just no words to describe how bad it is.”

Even with that, he didn’t think anyone would actually attack his business.

He said it will be hard to reclaim the damage through insurance, because it’s barely even worth it.

“Swan River is kind of known for break-ins, so the insurance company (in the past) refused replacement value on the building or the contents. They would only do cash value,” he said. “They’re barely worth the paper they’re written on.”

RCMP media relations officer Sgt. Paul Manaigre said it’s too early to tell if there was any motive, and that police are still investigating.

Manaigre said incidents like this are far from common.

“This particular incident itself is a little bit unique as far as the cause of the fire, it’s not a common occurrence, really anywhere in Manitoba,” he said. “This is unique for Swan River.”

The RCMP is asking anyone with security camera footage between 5 and 6 a.m. to check for someone riding a bike in the area.

Anyone with information on the suspect or the fire can contact the Swan River RCMP at 204-734-4686 or report it anonymously to Crime Stoppers.

» alambert@brandonsun.com