On this day in 1967, the Edmonton Flying Club was recovering after a fire that destroyed all of its aircraft.
The organization, Canada's first licensed aviation club, got its start in 1927, flying out of Blatchford Field (which would later be named the City Centre Airport). The club moved out of the city for a couple of years during the Second World War to make room for wartime flight training. When it returned to Blatchford in 1944, it moved into Hangar 8, a 400-by-300-foot structure built by the Royal Canadian Air Force. Over the next couple of decades, the club would grow into the space, amassing a fleet of 14 airplanes and boasting around 250 students.
Every one of those planes was wiped out on Feb. 26. At around 7pm that evening, explosions ripped through Hangar 8, sparking a fire that spread quickly. Flames were reportedly seen as far as 16 kilometres away. It took 70 firefighters more than two-and-a-half hours to get the fire under control, which was made all the more difficult by smaller explosions in the hangar, believed to be from the fuel tanks of the burning planes.
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Luckily, no one was seriously injured. By the time the fire was under control, a total of 35 planes had been destroyed, including four from Northward Aviation and other privately owned aircraft. In addition to losing its entire air fleet, the Edmonton Flying Club's offices were totally destroyed, as was Hangar 8. The fire was thought to have started in the hangar's boiler room.
One would think that having no planes would spell the end of the flying club. But its members were not going to give up. The day after the fire, the club's manager said they'd be back up and running in a day or two at a different airport. But it didn't even take that long: The club resumed flying lessons that very day, using a Piper Colt loaned by the Calgary Flying Club.
The club quickly rebuilt. Within a month, it announced plans to build a new facility. Work also began on securing new aircraft. By the end of the year, the club once again had 12 planes in its collection and had trained 152 private pilots and 26 commercial pilots.
Nearly 60 years after that devastating fire, the Edmonton Flying Club is still in the air, operating out of an airfield near Spruce Grove. Much of Blatchford Field has now been converted into residential development. Two years ago, fire once again struck the site, destroying Hangar 11, which was protected as a historic resource.
This clipping was found on Vintage Edmonton, a daily look at Edmonton's history from armchair archivist Rev Recluse of Vintage Edmonton.