Deputy Fire Chief Garth Rabel said employees working on a renovation at a commercial building in the 400 block of East Lake Boulevard on Jan. 30 found themselves with a leaking gas line, after the renovation went slightly awry.
“The workers themselves raised the alarm,” Rabel said.
“They inadvertently breached the line during the renovation and then contacted us,”
“They tried to mitigate it as well by clamping the line the best they could but we needed to get the utility company in there to make sure it was shut off before they could move forward with a repair.”
The incident, which involved a one and a quarter inch natural gas line, took place at 8:17 a.m., according to Rabel.
A number of employees and customers in nearby businesses had to be evacuated for a short time.
“There were about a dozen folks in all the bays that are there, because it was quite early in the morning, that we put out for safety reasons for a little while,” he said.
“Once it was under control, they were allowed back in.”
No one was injured as a result of the leak, according to Rabel.
The bay that was being renovated was vacant at the time of the incident.
Crews from the Airdrie Fire Department (AFD) worked with the utility company to ensure the leak was contained and the area was safe for employees.
“The utility company, ATCO Gas, got everything under control and then our guys used air monitoring (equipment) and deemed it safe,” Rabel said.
“They isolated the bay that was damaged and managed to get the utilities back up quite quickly.”
Four pieces of apparatus and 11 firefighters from the AFD assisted at the scene, according to Rabel.
