The community of Laclu is dealing with the emotional loss of a historic part of their hamlet last week.
Fire crews from two departments battled into the night to contain the fire, which destroyed the dance hall at Laclu Landing.
Barry Bennett, the fire chief of the all-volunteer Pellatt United fire department, said they knew right away the fire would be tough once they saw the flames and knew the building was made of over 70 year-old wood.
Bennett said they got a page at 8:35 p.m. on Friday evening about a structural fire.
“We found out through the radio communications, it was a fire at the landing, smoke and flames showing,” he said. “So we rushed to the hall and get information as we're on our way through our radios and pagers get trucks moving.”
"We have certain big buildings in our protection area that are marked that if there's ever anything there call for mutual aid right away because it's going to be a big job for volunteer team. So we called in McKenzie Clearwater, which is our neighbour to the Southwest," Bennett said.
“And they came with two more trucks and six more guys. So we had five trucks there. So we had probably close to 14 or 16 [firefighters] and then another six [from Clearwater].”
Bennett said his deputy chief did a 360-degree look around the building to get a good idea of what's happening and to make sure there was no one in the building.
He said it was helpful the building was by the water and the owners lived in a house about 20 metres away.
“I yelled to the boys, let's get some water off a pumper 91 right away and the rest of us let's get some pumps in the lake,” he said. “So we ended up getting four big portable pumps. We figured we were pumping almost 4,000 gallons a minute into either straight onto the fire and some of them were pumping water into our pumper trucks.”
Bennett said their firefighting was strictly defensive.
“There was no interior attack. It was a pretty intense fire,” he said. “You can imagine the heat but the size of the building [being 13 metres by 33 metres]. There was no harm in any of the cottages and surrounding structures.”
He said they were worried a bit about the power line, but Hydro One came out and shut it off.
“We didn't call it under control until about 2 a.m., I believe,” he said. “I always praise my guys and gals on our fire team. People that came by were absolutely amazed that there were still three walls standing.”
In Facebook posts, the owners of the building shared the news of the fire and thanked people and organizations involved with the fire response.
“Words can’t express how much we truly appreciate everyone’s contributions in what will be one of the most devastating days of our lives,” they posted.
About 175 comments offering condolences and memories were posted in support.
Bennett said there was no suspicious cause for fire they could see and the Ontario Fire Marshall’s office said it didn’t need to come investigate as there were no deaths and it was okay with his assessment.
He said an insurance adjuster would come out this week to assess the site.
Bennett said it's a huge loss for the community.
He said his family has been in the community for five generations and the dance hall had been a big part of the community for many years, serving as a general store, a restaurant and dance hall before being shuttered nearly four decades ago.
“I mean my mom worked there and my grandparents played in the band. My grandfather played the violin, my grandma played the piano. There was always something going on there during the summer months, the place rocked. It was gone before my heyday and I'm 63.”
He said it the current owners bought it about six years ago and started reworking the property which also has cottages for rent.
In recent years, the dance hall was used for wedding receptions during the summer, he said, with plans to expand to a year-round operation.
“Come May long weekend it's going to hit people because they're all going to go by and [look at what once was a bustling busy tourist business, that went dormant for decades, but was coming back and now is gone],” he said.
