A possible explosion and fire caused severe damage to a furniture refinishing factory here on July 25.
Wellington Advertiser circulation manager Catharine Goss saw the blaze as she was leaving work just after 5pm.
Goss saw, “flames shooting out of the building” on the northeast corner of Gartshore Street and Dickson Drive.
As she pulled over, she saw the back wall collapse.
“It was really black after the wall collapsed, because it let out a huge plume,” said Goss.
Another Advertiser employee called 911.
Centre Wellington Fire Rescue was notified at 5:20pm and all units from the Fergus and Elora stations attended, along with a pumper from Wellington North’s Arthur station.
“We don’t know exactly what happened yet,” said deputy fire chief Jonathan Karn on July 25. “We think there may have been an explosion based on the wall that’s laying on the ground.
“The building owner’s here and our fire prevention [official] is here talking to them and we called the fire marshall because we suspect an explosion.”
The building contains a furniture refinishing business.
“So some of the things they use … may have been a part of what’s happening – so different chemicals for refinishing,” Karn said. “That may have been what happened.
“We don’t know yet … but we definitely have some materials in there that could have caused that.”
He said the fire department turned off hydro and natural gas to the building while they were figuring out what caused the blaze.
When crews arrived they saw vehicles in the building’s driveway but after an office search, they confirmed no one was inside the building.
The people working in the building left mid-afternoon and were accounted for at the evening fire scene. There were no injuries reported.
“When we got here the wall was already out and we could see a lot of fire inside the building from that open wall so we started our fire attack from that area,” Karn said.
“We basically suppressed the fire from the outside.”
Karn said the fire is not deemed suspicious as of July 25, but investigators with the Ontario Fire Marshal's Office attended the scene and stayed until July 26.
Having a wall blown out created a risk for firefighters, Karn explained.
“With this already being an explosion, obviously we had one wall that was blown out, so that compromises other walls potentially,” Karn said. “So collapse is always an issue for us.”
He also said the hot weather posed a challenge for firefighters.
“We bring lots of people so we’re able to rotate them through rehab,” he said. “Get them working for a bit and then rotate them in and out of the jobs.”
Karn commended his team.
“The guys did a fantastic job getting water on the fire really quickly and getting it knocked down,” he said. “Obviously that wall being missing helped us a lot.”
A damage estimate for the building was not immediately available.
