Just days before a new, custom-made rutabaga processing plant north of Mitchell was to begin operation again, owners will have to start over after a second devastating fire destroyed the building this week and caused more than $2.5 million in damages.
No injuries were reported in the fire, as the West Perth Fire Department was called at 3:39 p.m. Monday to the plant at the Stovel-Siemon facility on Line 39.
“We were hoping to start pushing product through (July 17),” co-owner Darryl Siemon said Thursday.
The company’s original 60-year-old processing plant was gutted in a fire Dec. 26, 2021. It has taken the family this long to rebuild as the structure was unique in its design with hand-fabricated equipment.
Siemon said a waxer caught on fire and started the latest blaze. He and another worker were inside and heard something pop. They fought the flames as best they could before firefighters arrived.
“It was almost like a contact or something flipped or broke,” he said. “The terrible part of it all is that we tested it out so many times, and this time I don’t know what happened. We’re wondering if a power surge went through. We tested it multiple times before and there were no problems.
“I can’t really remember what happened before that … my mindset when I saw it on fire was save it and don’t worry about anything else.”
Perth East/West Perth fire Chief Bill Hunter said firefighters “made an aggressive interior attack but were forced back outside due to smoke and fire conditions.”
Portions of the building collapsed due to the fire damage and it was a total loss.
“We had to bring in heavy equipment to remove steel to allow access for our firefighters to fully extinguish the blaze,” Hunter said.
The fire is not considered suspicious, and the investigation is ongoing. The Ontario Fire Marshal was contacted but did not attend.
Siemon said much of the new design was unique to their business and will be tough to replicate. Having gone through it once, he said it should be quicker to complete.
“The biggest part was how long it took to get to this point. It’s not stuff you just go grab off the shelves. This was all hand-fabricated by us or people we hired out to do stuff. We did 90 per cent of this stuff ourselves and that’s why it took a little longer.”
In addition to the entire West Perth fire department, Hunter said there was a “tremendous amount of resources” on scene utilizing their mutual aid plan from North Perth (Monkton, Atwood and Listowel), Perth East (Sebringville, Milverton and Shakespeare) and Seaforth in Huron East. Close to 70 firefighters, with 20 fire trucks, were on scene at the height of the fire, primarily to transport water back and forth from Mitchell.
A fuel truck had to attend the scene to refuel trucks during the fire, Hunter added.
St. Marys’ fire department’s aerial truck was also relocated to Sebringville to provide coverage for other alarms.
The Perth County OPP assisted with traffic control and Perth County paramedics provided stand-by medical support for the crews.
All firefighters were clear of the scene by early Tuesday morning.