A piece of St. Benedict history is gone.
The St. Benedict Hotel was lost in a fire in the wee hours of April 18.
Three Lakes Fire Department was originally called to look after the blaze, but quickly realized it was far too large and called in the Humboldt Fire Department.
Humboldt Fire Chief Mike Kwasnica, says they got the call at approximately 12:16 a.m. on April 18.
Nine members of Humboldt FD, as well as a tanker, command unit, and mini-pumper joined three members of the Three Lakes unit at the fire.
Kwasnica notes en route to the fire they called for more back up from Cudworth, who sent nine more members, as well as a tanker, and mini-pumper.
With the drive being approximately 57 km from Humboldt to St. Benedict, Kwasnica says by the time they arrived on scene the building was engulfed in flames.
Crews from the three departments continued fighting the flames for a couple of hours.
With the building being fully engulfed by the time Humboldt arrived on scene, Kwasnica noted a large amount of water was required to fight the flames, which they did not have.
So, with water being difficult to come by, crews were forced to deplete St. Benedict’s drinking reservoir to nearly nothing, with Kwasnica guessing they used approximately 6,000 gallons from the reservoir.
Crews were also able to cut through the ice at a slew approximately a mile outside of St. Benedict, which was also used to help fight the fire.
Finally, by approximately 4:45 a.m. crews had the blaze under control enough that Cudworth was able to head home.
Humboldt stayed on scene for approximately another 45 minutes, says Kwasnica, before they eventually left the scene around 5:30 a.m.
Three Lakes meanwhile, stayed on scene for another couple of hours, says Kwasnica, as they needed to do some water shuttling back and forth to cool down what was left.
Kwasnica says no injuries were reported following the blaze, and says there was not anyone inside the hotel at the time of the fire, noting from his knowledge the call was made by a neighbour.
The owner of the hotel was not home at the time, and was at another residence in St. Benedict the night of the fire, says Kwasnica.
The hotel, which also served as a bar was open the night of the fire, with Kwasnica guessing it closed somewhere around 8:30 p.m.
Kwasnica, a former St. Benedict resident, had been in the hotel just a couple weeks before the fire, and admits the loss is a huge one for the community.
“It was the last social gathering place that they had in their community… hopefully this doesn’t impact them too much.”
The cause of the fire is still under investigation, says Kwasnica, who notes that due to the building being a complete loss, the investigation will be more difficult to conduct.
“Normally we go from the most burnt to the least burnt, well on this one there’s not a whole lot of least burnt so if we can go by eye witness accounts or if they have an photographs that they’ve taken during the time between when we got called to when we arrived, that helps us out a lot.”
Anyone with any information is encouraged to call Humboldt Fire Department, says Kwasnica.
