Terry Halifax
Northern News Services
Hay River (Jun 11/01) - A fire gutted the office and shop of a Hay River propane sales and service dealer last week, causing nearly $300,000 in damage.
Within "five or six minutes" of the alarm, Deputy Fire Chief Gene Hachey was on the scene of blaze that started in the shop area of the building.
Hachey said the fire likely started in an appliance that was under repair.
"A propane device overheated, ignited, ignited another line and off she went," Hachey said. "The fire started in the lower area and travelled up to the mezzanine.We had a bit of a problem getting up into the mezzanine."
He's estimated the damage will be about $250,000 to $300,000, but that may change depending on structural damage to the warehouse, said Stittco Utilities manager Noel Demarcke.
"It depends on whether we need to rebuild or replace," Demarcke said.
The fire gutted the warehouse and shop area, feeding off the cardboard packaging stored in the building.
"We keep all sorts of propane appliances in there -- stoves, fridges, water heaters, clothes dryers and all kinds of furnace parts," he said.
While Demarke said there was never any worry of the fire spreading to the 72,000 and 60,000-gallon propane storage tanks on the property, Demarke said it could have been much worse.
"At least we got to save our office," he said.
Hachey said the investigation is continuing to determine other fuel sources that fed the stubborn blaze.
"There were a couple of factors but we're still dealing with the investigation," he said. "There were some flamables stored in there and it hampered our fire fighting a little bit, but the fire was capped very quickly."
The company's seven employees did not miss any work because of the fire and are busy cleaning up the aftermath of the blaze, Demarcke said. It will be back to business as usual at Stittco today.
