No one was injured after a fire broke out on the roof of a building at the Parksville Heritage Centre on the East Island Highway on Friday afternoon (April 16).
The Parksville Fire Department, which received a call at 2:47 p.m. about a structure fire, dispatched crews to the location.
Assistant chief Mike Tisdelle was first to arrive and found light smoke coming out from the facade on the east side of the building, just underneath the office of Courtenay-Alberni MP Gord Johns and bathroom remodeling business Re-Bath.
“There were four roofers on the roof and they were attempting to put the fire out with buckets of water,” said Tisdelle. “They did a great job. There was still light smoke upon the arrival of our first in-coming engine crew. They laddered the building and brought a hose line up. They put the rest of the fire out.”
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Tisdelle said fire crews followed up with some overhauling to make sure there were no hot spots in the trusses and structure of the building. He said there was a potential risk for the flames to escalate.
“There could have been large flames, large smoke as it was 20 feet near the hydro lines coming to the building,” said Tisdelle.
All of the roofers were able to get away safely and no one was injured.
“None of them needed to go with the ambulance,” said Tisdelle. “The ambulance did check them over. But everyone was good. There was no smoke inhalation.”
Some of the water had seeped through into Johns’s constituency office but other than that, Tisdelle said “there’s very little, minor damage to any units below.”
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.