Nobody was hurt when a former mechanic shop went up in flames in Fernie on Sunday afternoon.
Fire Chief Brendan Morgan said the building is likely a total loss, as the fire was challenging to fight back.
“It was a complex fire due to the mixed fuel in the building, with furniture, different products, paint and so on. It took a while to put out the fire,” said Morgan. “With the building being a cinder brick building, it was hard to get water onto the fire.”
Crews were sent out just before 2 p.m. to the building in West Fernie. In total, 20 people were helping to keep the fire contained, with the BC Ambulance Service on site and mutual aid from Hosmer’s fire department,
“I didn’t want to send any firefighters into the building because of the amount of fuel and roof structure,” explained Morgan. “We kind of had to do a more defensive fight of this fire.”
Morgan said crews battled the blaze well into the night.
“We managed to get most of the fire out by about 7 o’clock and then there were some hot spots throughout the night until around midnight,” said Morgan. “We had personnel on the scene right through the whole night.”
Nobody was hurt and firefighters were able to keep the flames from spreading to nearby buildings.
The cause of the blaze is not known and an investigation is underway.