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Smoke billowed over Saskatoon’s industrial area on Wednesday as firefighters battled to bring a major structure fire under control.
Late Wednesday morning, the fire department received “a number of calls” about a possible fire at Prestige Flooring & Hardwood on Jasper Avenue, acting Fire Chief Rob Hogan said at a Wednesday news conference.
“First-arriving crews found heavy fire and smoke coming out the front door area,” Hogan said. “They made sure everyone was out of the building, and they started to attack the fire.”
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Not long after the first crews arrived, the incident commander called for a second alarm “due to the nature of the fire and the amount of combustibles that were in this building,” Hogan said.
“This business is flooring, so there’s carpet, glue, hardwood — all that sort of stuff in there. That’s what was burning, and it’s a heavy fire load, and you can smell the acrid smoke.”
At first, firefighters set up two ladder trucks to “attack the fire from the top,” Hogan said. They pulled back when they realized that the roof and walls were already badly damaged and at risk of collapse.
At the height of the response, six engines, two ladders, the battalion chief and the fire incident command unit worked together at the scene.
“We’re currently operating with one ladder, and we’re going to be putting some crews at one of the doors to try to hit some fire pockets that are in the back of the building,” Hogan said about two hours after the first calls about the fire came in.
Ultimately, as of late Wednesday afternoon, firefighters were able to contain the fire to one corner of the roof. Though the roof was “severely compromised,” it remained intact.
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And after more than three hours of hard work, the fire department declared the fire under control, though crews remained on site to monitor hot spots.
Hogan said the situation could have been much worse if it had happened earlier this week, when the city was blanketed by dense, stagnant, smoky air.
“We’re fortunate that the wind right now is blowing to the west, keeping (the smoke) away from us,” he said.
A fire investigator was at the scene on Wednesday, gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses.
Hogan said he had not yet been able to see inside the building, but from the “heavy fire damage to the front part of the building” that he could see, as well as the dense smoke, he estimated that the final damage report is “going to be quite substantial.”
The smoke looked dramatic and smelled noxious, but Hogan said he wanted to reassure Saskatonians that the fire department had the situation well in hand.
“This fire is right along the highway, so there’s going to be a lot of public interest,” he said. “And with all the smoke we’ve had in the last few days, it’s important that we get the message out that we have this under control.”
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