Fire destroys Kamsack’s historic Woodlander Hotel

The iconic Woodlander Hotel in Kamsack burned down Friday night.

The hotel was built in 1912 and Kamsack Fire Chief Ken Thompson said the building has gone through a lot.

“It survived the great Kamsack cyclone back in the early ’40s when the tornado went through town,” Thompson said Saturday.

The blaze started around 10 p.m. and continued late into the night. Thompson described what he saw when he arrived on the scene.

“There was a lot of smoke and the flames were starting to break out on the bottom,” he explained. “We started attacking the fire and, being an old building, the flames spread rapidly up to the third floor and basically the whole building became engulfed quite rapidly.

“The south wall actually blew up and scattered debris for almost two blocks.”

Fire crews were still on the scene Saturday morning putting out hot spots to prevent the fire from reigniting.

There were people inside the hotel when the fire started, but the owner of the building got everyone out in a hurry and no one was hurt.

Thompson said the people inside were lucky.

“If this would’ve happened sometime in the middle of the night when they were sleeping, who knows? They may never have got out,” Thompson said. “They were very fortunate this happened during waking hours.”

Kamsack resident Michael Puk recalled the very chaotic night.

“The fire started to get out of control so they called in neighbouring fire departments,” he said. “By 1:30, the blaze went out of control, taking down the roof and the power was also cut to that block at the same time as well.”

In a social media post while the firefighters were still on the scene, the Town of Kamsack asked people to “limit their water usage to avoid disruptions.”

Thompson said he was glad that nobody was hurt in the fire and sad to see the building lost.