(l-r) Director of Protective Services Greg Peters, and firefighters Bruce Wade and  Peter Gruber assess the damage to the Horseshoe Facility on Saturday morning. The investigation into the overnight blaze continues. photo O.R. Sheddy.

Investigators have determined that a fire that destroyed the Drumheller Horseshoe Club facility in Centennial Park was suspicious in nature.
    Drumheller Firefighters responded to the blaze at about 1 a.m. October 18, to the building that sits behind the Drumheller Memorial Arena.  
    Upon arrival at the scene, the building was totally engulfed in fire. The facility and its contents were completely destroyed.
    Fire investigators and police were at the scene Saturday morning to begin the fire investigation.
    Fire Chief Bill Bachynski explained fire investigators look for things such as cause of ignition, locations of damage, contributing fuels, and any other clues that could determine how or why a fire started.
    “We look for heavier burns and many other different things during a fire investigation,” he explains. “It is a specialized field, and investigators go through a lot of training to learn this.”
    “You start with reconstructing the scene prior to the fire - that is the basis. And then you move forward using the process of elimination.”
    Bachynski explains in this case, investigators have determined a point of origin of the fire, but have not determined  its ignition source.
    When there is a fire, Drumheller’s RCMP are notified and form part of the emergency response. Police are on scene during the fire, and continue with the investigation that follows. In this case, the fire is considered suspicious, and the investigation continues.
    “It is a long process, and there are many different phases as we work through the investigation,” said the fire chief.

The dinosaurs at the Calgary Zoo have been refurbished to support a new herd of animatronic dinosaurs in March 2015. Drumheller's  DinoArts Association has arranged to obtain the Zoo's Prehistoric Park dinos. 

    Dinosaurs destined for the Drumheller Valley are getting a new lease on life as part of a new display at the Calgary Zoo.
    The Calgary Zoo unveiled its master plan last year and that vision did not include the Prehistoric Park. At  that time, the local DinoArts Society arranged a home for the dinosaurs in the valley.
    Much has changed since April 2013, most notably the flood in Calgary 2 months later in June.
    “The flood upset a few plans along the way, but as part of the master plan, we did announce we would be closing down Prehistoric Park. Since we are a few years away from doing that and the rest of the park looks so good after all the work after the flood, we wanted to spruce up that area of the park too,” said Larissa Mark of the Calgary Zoo.
    Enter the animatronic dinosaurs.
    Last week the zoo announced it would be bringing back the mechanical dinosaurs that mimic the movement and behaviour of the prehistoric beasts, in March 2015.
    “We gave the park a makeover, repainted some of our existing dinosaurs and decided to bring back the animatronic dinosaurs,” said Mark.
    In 2010, the zoo featured “Dinosaurs Alive” and based on that success saw the opportunity to do it again.
    “Guests will be exposed to an enhanced experience of our Prehistoric Park – we’ve taken what everyone loved about the area and made it better,” says Roz Freeman, Special Events Advisor. “We’ve increased our programming space and efforts to educate our visitors on how we learn about dinosaurs and the role they played in the Alberta Badlands.”  
    Dinosaurs Unearthed, a Vancouver–based company will be bringing them back. The new models are engineered it to move in a true to nature fashion and all will vocalize.
    In the spring of 2013, when the 20-year master plan was announced, the DinoArts Committee in Drumheller had the foresight to enquire about the models in prehistoric park and found agreement that the dinosaurs could make the valley a retirement home.
    Mark says the decision to refurbish the existing prehistoric park to host the animatronic dinosaurs does not affect that agreement.
    “It is still going to be a few years before Prehistoric Park is phased out, anything that we are doing now would not impact any decision that we made at that time,” she said.
    There is no concrete time line.
    “Our master plan is living, breathing documents so things could change any time. The flood did impact some timelines, but the master plan is our plan for the next 20 years, but we have not set any timelines because of things like funding and other factors we need to take into account.”