Residents in Foothills County are expressing concerns over water access in their community southwest of Calgary after a home was engulfed in flames Wednesday.
Crews were called to the home off Highway 762 near 242 Ave W in Foothills County shortly after four o’clock; no injuries were reported but the home is a complete loss.
However, nearby residents are convinced fire crews encountered issues when four engines travelled to a nearby bulk fill station to replenish their water tanks with a high velocity pump.
That pump sits behind a fence installed last year, according to Mary Anne Desmeules, who lives nearby.
“None of the firemen knew how to get through the gate, they didn’t have a key, they didn’t know how to access the standpipe because the fence is in the way,” she told Global News.
“They had to use the typical bulk fill that residents use for their own water.”
Desmeules said it should only take up to five minutes to fill a truck with the high velocity pump, but she said it was taking “20 minutes each” to refill with the bulk fill pump.
“It was super sad and frustrating, I felt so sorry for the firemen because they were all great guys here that were trying their best.”
Desmeules showed Global News a September email from Foothills County chief administrative officer Ryan Payne that stated the fence “does not cause a problem for emergency services access to the water source in the event of a fire.”
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In a statement, Foothills County fire chief Russ Friesen said an adequate and consistent water supply was available to fire crews as they worked to contain this fire and protect surrounding properties.
But residents feel Wednesday’s fire is another example of the growing concerns around water access in the community, south of Bragg Creek.
There are no fire hydrants in the area, and many of the nearby properties rely on the bulk fill station or wells to draw their drinking water.
“There’s people who are really scared and concerned that if something did happen, that there’d be no way of stopping the fire,” said Russell Walker, who also lives nearby.
“We’re really surrounded by a lot of old growth forest.”
Walker and Desmeules are amongst a group of residents who have formed a committee pushing for improved and more permanent water infrastructure in the area.
“We’re in a drought situation,” Desmeules said. “Wells are going dry out here, people who had reliable water are concerned because their wells are going dry.”
The group is looking for the county to build a water pipeline to service surrounding residents, after a 2018 study into a more permanent system all the way to Priddis.
Walker told Global News the estimated costs per resident have risen since 2018, despite the group finding an engineering company that claims it could meet the community needs, with fire hydrants, at a cheaper price.
“We want the water, we just don’t want to pay an exponential amount for it when there’s other people in the county that are paying far less for it,” Walker said. “We just want a feasible plan.”
The group plans to meet with Banff-Kananaskis NDP MLA Sarah Elmeligi in the coming weeks, in the hopes of furthering conversations about water infrastructure in the community.
© 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
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