The North Bay Fire and Emergency Services (NBFES) timely response to a call saved a building last night.
Just after midnight this morning (July 22), the NBFES responded to a report of a fire at 333 Main St. East. The firefighters extinguished a fire that started in a garbage can and was then pushed up against the doorway of the building.
The fire had already extended into the doorframe and the soffit above the door.
Deputy Fire Chief for the NBFES, Greg Saunders, says that the situation came ‘perilously’ close to turning into a very significant fire event.
“It’s a dangerous situation, certainly,” he said. “Fortunately nobody was home at the time. The building has a commercial storefront, but there are residents in the back. These situations, depending on occupancy, can be really, really dangerous.”
Saunders credits his firefighters for being on the scene in minutes.
“By the time we got the call, to our guys getting all their gear on, getting into the truck… we were on the scene in four minutes. That has a direct impact to the extension of the fire. Fire grows exponentially… so if you take twice as long to get there, the fire is not twice as big. It could be 15 times as big. Response time in a scenario like that means the difference between a relatively small fire event, and quite frankly losing a building.”
The North Bay Police services were called to investigate what Saunders describes as  ‘clearly an arson fire’.
