The township’s public works building near Drayton was destroyed by fire last Friday night, during one of the busiest weekends local firefighters have ever experienced.
Mapleton firefighters responded to a total of five fires between Nov. 28 and 30.
“We don’t get that many major fires in a year,” Fire Chief Rick Richardson said on Dec. 1, adding the busy weekend also included a call to a traffic accident on Wellington Road 109.
And on Monday morning, the department was called out to assist with a woman in labour at her Drayton home. She made it to Fergus by ambulance in time to have the baby in the hospital there.
The hectic stretch began at 10pm on Nov. 28, when Mapleton firefighters were called to a house fire on Concession 9 of Arthur Township, along with Arthur firefighters.
Mapleton and Arthur firefighters are simultaneously called to occurrences in that area, Richardson explained.
“We basically set up and Arthur took over,” he said.
At 2:30am Mapleton firefighters were called to Glen Allan to deal with a truck burning beside a garage.
“We put the truck (fire) out. The garage was okay,” said Richardson, noting firefighters were able to prevent the fire from spreading.
Firefighters cleared the Glen Allan scene by 4am, but were on the road about 90 minutes later to deal with a fire in a corn dryer at Rothsay.
“We opened it up, got the corn out and sprayed it down; it wasn’t a big deal,” said Richardson, noting there was no damage to the corn dryer as a result of the fire.
Firefighters returned from that call before 7am and all was quiet until just before 6pm that night, Nov. 29, when a call came in from a passerby who spotted fire at the township’s work shed at the Mapleton administrative centre on Sideroad 16.
Drayton and Moorefield station firefighters responded, with Arthur firefighters called in to supply water and manpower, and Centre Wellington’s Elora station called in to supply an aerial truck.
“We didn’t want anybody on the roof,” said Richardson.
“Most of the guys worked to get the fire under control,” while four of the firefighters who work for the township and Wellington County roads departments removed snowplows and trucks from the shop and took them to the Moorefield public works yard.
While firefighters were checking for hot spots among the insulation and wood trusses and Richardson was doing a television interview about the shop fire, Moorefield and Drayton firefighters heard their pagers go off once again, this time for a basement fire on Bonniewood Drive.
The Arthur firefighters, already released from the shop fire scene and standing at the ready in Drayton, were sent to Bonniewood, along with a contingent of Mapleton firefighters.
The basement was fully-engulfed when they arrived, said Richardson, but the fire was extinguished with the use of a Fit-5 fire suppression device.
Richardson said the device is like a “grenade” that spins around and releases fire retardant material into a room.
“It basically put the fire 90 per cent out and then our guys went down with water and hoses and put out a few hot spots,” said the chief.
While no one was injured, the Bonniewood Drive home sustained extensive smoke damage to the upper floors and the basement was “destroyed.”
Back at the works shed, the fire had been “calmed down,” by about 1am and manpower and equipment were scaled back. However a crew of six with pumper, water and ladder trucks remained on the scene to watch for flare ups.
That happened at about 5:30am, Richardson reports.
“The wind came from the west really hard and picked up a spark on the end of the building and it just took off through the trusses,” he said. “It was through the trusses and into the mezzanine within 10 minutes.”
While not prepared to provide a dollar estimate, Richardson said the shop is a total loss. “We’ll be starting from scratch when the investigation is over,” he said.
While the fire is not considered suspicious, an Ontario Fire Marshal’s investigation is triggered automatically on fires where damage is estimated to exceed $750,000, Richardson explained. He declined to speculate on the cause of the blaze until the investigation is completed. However, he noted all five fires are unrelated.
“It’s just something that happens,” he said of the rash of fires in a 24-hour period.
One injury was sustained at the shop fire, by a firefighter who slipped on the ice and sprained his ankle.
While noting it was “obviously a tough weekend in Mapleton,” public works director Larry Lynch said there is much to be thankful for in the wake of a fire that “could have been devastating.
“The exceptional work of the Mapleton Fire Department and our public works staff saved all of our snow plowing trucks and our graders.
“The loss of that equipment at this time of year would have been a massive blow to winter operations. As it is, in addition to all of our tools, kitchen and lunch room, office material, parts and equipment manuals, and day-to-day operating equipment, the biggest equipment loss was a brand new wood chipper, an older model utility tractor and our generator,” stated Lynch.
“The generator also serves as backup to our main office so that is a significant, immediate concern,” stated Lynch.
He added, “While we will certainly be experiencing some initial operational pains we will not miss a beat in providing the same high level snow removal and public works response in spite of our current hardships.
“We have moved all of our snow removal equipment to our Moorefield shop and we have a contingency plan for housing some of the equipment that will not fit inside there by taking advantage of some local private offers for shop space and sheds. Lynch said some of the public works department managers will set up office space at the Moorefield Fire Hall, which is adjacent to the Moorefield works shop.
“Since we operate two shifts in the winter months we will crowd our operators into the Moorefield shop and hopefully the tight quarters will be offset by the availability of locker space, shower room and lunch room there.
“We will continue to utilize our sand and salt sheds from each location and have made some slight plow and sanding route modifications to ensure our routes are prioritized and covered as efficiently as we have always done.”
Lynch added staff will be on the road for winter maintenance Monday through Friday, from 5am until 6pm daily and as required on weekends.
