Prince George Fire Rescue Chief Fire Bryan Burleigh says an insurance adjuster has been assigned in the fire that destroyed the Nechako Bottle Depot, and an investigation will commence this week.
Fire crews were called to the depot just before 5:00 Sunday morning, and spent much of the day battling the blaze before calling it extinguished in the evening.
Burleigh said the cause is still unknown at this point.
“We will do our official fire investigation here, and the cause hopefully will be determined, and put people’s mind at ease as a result,” he said.
He said the rain falling throughout the day helped with the fire fighting efforts as well.
“When we deal with a major loss like this, what happens is the structure begins to collapse in on itself and it makes firefighting extremely difficult, in this case we actually used an excavator to assist,” he explained.
“Based on the heavy timber, the extreme wood, and just a deep-seeded fire, the rain definitely helped, it acts like a sprinkler throughout the night.”
He added the loss of the bottle depot is devastating for the community.
“For the property owner, for the people that work there, so there’s several greater impacts than just the loss to the building and the business,” he said.
“Hopefully they’ll be able to rebuild and navigate through their insurance and resurrect their business and livelihoods that it supported.”
Burleigh said the fire being close to the CN Railway created a challenge for fire fighters as well.
“In the fire service, we talk about exposure, so items or properties that are not directly involved in fire, but adjacent to it, they can become a part of the problem for us with radiant heat and those types of things,” he explained.
“In this case we had two major trains parked right adjacent to this building that’s created a challenge.”
Burleigh noted that with help from CN, the trains were moved before any problems arose.
He added this serves as a good reminder for residents to ensure their properties are FireSmart.
“Rely on working smoke alarms, have a fire safety plan, and more importantly practice that plan and more importantly practice that plan, because when the call comes, it’s too late to practice, so be prepared, be organized. We’re here to promote public safety and we will continue to do so in our community.”
This afternoon, the Prince George RCMP put out a call to ask anyone who may have any video surveillance of the depot that may help with the investigation to come forward.
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