On July 9, 2009, Blue Hills RCMP were contacted by Manitoba Conservation Officers advising that sometime between June 23 and July 8, 2009, someone had attended to a remote location in the Spruce Woods Park and burnt down a large old Barn and did damage to a warm-up shack and sign.
The barn and warmup shack are located approximately 3 miles from the Look Out point in the middle of the park. Conservation officers advised Police that the barn is there for people that are going through the park on horse back so that they could stop for a rest and a place to tie up their animals. The warm up shack is used by snowmobile enthusiasts to stop and warm up. No-one was injured in this fire and the barn was empty at the time.
Police located several Budweiser beer cans and garbage near within a very short distance of the barn fire. It is unknown at this time how the fire was started as the barn burned totally to the ground leaving only a cement pad.
There was concern by the Conservation officers as a fire of this magnitude in the dry conditions could have caused a major forest fire and wiped out a large area of timber and park area.
Estimated loss for this structure fire and the damage to the warm up shack is approximately $200,000.
Police are asking anyone with any information into this fire to contact Brandon Detachment at 204-726-7522 or the Carberry Detachment at 204-834-2905 or Manitoba Crime Stoppers.
