A local family is still picking up the pieces after a structure on their grandparent's farmland was destroyed by fire. 

On June 2nd, Airdrie firefighters responded to the fire early that morning. Jodi Osborne heard about the fire from a friend nearby and later discovered what was burning.

A part of the Osborne land where the garage used to stand

“They went down to check it out first and sure enough it was on fire. It was my Grandfather’s triple car garage that he had built. It’s been a landmark there for years on 8th Street before 8th Street was even called 8th Street.”

Osborne says that the garage was rented out to Todd Cunningham, who used it to house several of his antiques.

“He just finished moving into the triple car garage that day. He had messaged me and was excited because he had just had the springs fixed on one of the garage doors. He has done everything that he could because we knew that vandals were going in there and he had everything he could to protect himself. He lost his entire picking career in that fire.”

The family is devastated, not just because of the garage fire but because that part of their family’s heritage has been damaged multiple times.

Osborne shares what happened to that garage nearly 18 months ago.

“My son was driving home past the farm and saw some kids jumping the gate and so my son stopped and he hopped the gate and found about 100 kids in the garage partying. They had spray painted some profanities in the garage and busted out a bunch of windows.”

Another incident occurred on Easter weekend this year after they allowed a friend who is legally blind to bring his fifth wheel to the garage,

“When he was in the hospital, the vandals went in there and busted windows and his fifth wheel trailer. Pulled all the contents out of his cabinet, they defecated inside the trailer, smashed a bunch of stuff. That was his only possession and his only home and insurance ended up writing it off.”

The family has put out a plea on Social Media sharing their frustrations with the fire and past vandalism, hoping that those responsible for the fire to the garage will be caught.

Outside of that, Osborne says that the community support to help them during this time has been tremendous.

The Airdrie Fire Department is continuing to investigate the blaze.

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