At around 7 a.m. Sunday morning, Jan. 26, West Nipissing Fire and Emergency Service was called to a fire at Oscarl Sales and Storage. The business is at 11793 Highway 17, near Cache Bay Road. It’s a few minutes west of Sturgeon Falls.
Fire Chief Frank Loeffen told BayToday “It’s still under investigation, but we’re thinking it started off within the back garage, but it spread into the stored tire piles and the back garage was completely lost.”
The chief estimated the fire caused around $700,000 in damages to the building, although that too is under investigation.
Firefighters came from Sturgeon Falls, Field, and Verner to fight the flames. They arrived soon after seven on Sunday morning and were there until around three o’clock that afternoon. Chief Loeffen noted “It took a long time. We ended up having to bring an excavator in to pull materials down so we could get at it and extinguish the rest of the structure.”
The walls and roof were tin, the chief added.
Thankfully, there was nobody injured in the fire, and no firefighters were hurt battling the blaze. The chief noted, “There was nobody present at the time of the fire; a passerby reported it.”
“The winds definitely helped to protect the front garage,” Chief Loeffen said, “The wind direction was pushing the heat and the smoke towards the back.”
Twenty firefighters helped extinguish the blaze with three tankers shuttling in water to the site.