It was once a vibrant part of the community, with thousands of members and a bustling curling rink.
Now it is just a burned-out shell of a building, after the former Ogden legion, located at the corner of 78 Avenue and Ogden Road Southeast, was destroyed in an early morning fire.
The Calgary Fire Department said the call came in just before 3 a.m. on Wednesday.
When firefighters arrived, they were met with flames coming out of the front of the building, but because of its age and state of disrepair, it was determined too dangerous for firefighters to go inside.
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When fire crews arrived, there were flames coming out of the front of the building, which has been vacant since 2012.
“We’ve got 10 trucks on scene, approximately 25 firefighters working on it,” CFD District Chief Shaun Leonard said.
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“Because it’s an older building and it’s been abandoned, a lot of the doors have been blocked, (so) access is an issue. We actually have a standing order. We’re not really committing interior ops on this building just because of the danger to firefighters.”
The possibility that the building also had asbestos insulation forced firefighters to also wear masks while fighting the fire.
The building, which was abandoned after it was sold by the legion in 2012, has been a community eyesore for years, with area residents calling for it to be demolished because it has become a site of drug use, squatters, vandalism, theft and other forms of social disorder.
Area residents said the former home of the Ogden legion had become a centre of drug use, theft, vandalism and other forms of social disorder.
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In October 2023, the city ordered that it be torn down by the new owners.
The City of Calgary’s Licence and Community Standards Appeal Board later upheld the demolition order, but the owner applied for a judicial review from the Alberta Court of King’s Bench.
Following the fire, the building will now need to be torn down.
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