A large fire has burned down a memorable building in a small village southeast of Regina. On Saturday afternoon, volunteers from Montmartre Fire Department responded to a building in flames located on Railway Avenue and Main Street in the village of Kendal. Residents said the fire started on the upper floor of the building known as the Hunters Lodge around 2 p.m. “We went down the back alley to see what was going on there and we could see that the Hunters Lodge was engulfed fully in flames,” said Andy, a resident who lives in the neighbourhood. He witnessed the blaze with his wife Saturday afternoon. “That was pretty spectacular, the heat. We couldn’t stand any closer than maybe 40 or 50 feet because the heat was so intense,” he added. The Hunters Lodge served as a bar in the community in the 1970s. However it shut down a few decades ago. In addition to the volunteer fire department, Andy said people in the community along with Saskatchewan RCMP officers helped keep the incident under control. “There was only two officers that was able to attend. They need to be praised because they kept crowd control, traffic control. People were stopping on the highways and jamming the highway it was just ridiculous,” Andy said. “The Montmartre Fire Department needs to be praised because of their outstanding work as volunteers. They ran out of water and a local farmer, I believe his name is Noel, he brought his own water trucks in to replenish them and Kim’s fencing, who lives in the town. He brought fuel over so they could get the pumps going. “That’s a lot of community effort to take that down.” By Sunday morning, smoke was still present in the area. CTV News has reached out to Saskatchewan RCMP and the Montmartre Fire Department for comment.
