GUELPH/ERAMOSA – While many were preparing Thanksgiving feasts on Monday afternoon, firefighters in Guelph/Eramosa and Puslinch were rushing to fight a fire.
Shortly after 1pm, firefighters arrived on the scene, on Highway 7 near Wellington Road 29, to find a workshop “with heavy smoke and flames coming from the side of the building,” said Mike Smits, captain with the Guelph/Eramosa Fire Department.
Inside the burning building was a family’s pet cat.
Smits said the residents tried to enter the building to save the cat prior to the arrival of firefighters, but they were turned back by the thick smoke.
“We ventilated the structure and one of our firefighters went in with a breathing apparatus and brought out the cat,” Smits said.
Submitted photo
When the cat was carried out of the building Smits said it was “basically unconscious – in pretty rough shape.”
Another firefighter gave the cat oxygen and “kitty first aid,” and within a couple hours the cat was back to normal, Smits said.
Fifteen firefighters from the Rockwood station responded to the call with five trucks, alongside six Puslinch firefighters in two trucks.
They quickly knocked down the flames and then “spent a bunch of time dealing with hot spots in the walls and attic area,” Smits said.
The walls were made of metal cladding with wooden insulation.
Guelph/Eramosa firefighters were called back to the scene later Monday evening, because one of the hotspots began smouldering.
“We weren’t able to pick it up with the thermal imaging camera,” Smits said.
“So it reignited. It was just smouldering, so we went back, removed more of the wall cladding, and extinguished it.”
An official damage estimate is not yet available, but Smits guessed it’s between $150,000 and $200,000. He suspects the workshop can be repaired.
The cause of the fire is undetermined, but it is not considered suspicious, he added.
