Major damage in blaze
Cause yet to be determined, engineer to assess if George Street building is salvagable after stub born overnight fire.
An overnight fire that shutdown streets in downtown Peter borough for hours is not suspicious, city police said.
“The fire does not appear to be suspicious in nature,” city police Sgt Michael Jackson stated Friday morning.
George Street between Hunter and Simcoe streets remained closed into Friday afternoon while the charred commercial building was assessed.
The fire broke out around 11 p.m. Thursday on the upper floor of the commercial building at 372 George St. N., near Simcoe Street, that houses the Simple cosmetics store on the ground floor and photographer Ash Nay le r studio on the upper level (it also used to house Charm Tree Toys, which closed at the start of 2014).
On the scene, city fire department Chief Chris Snetsinger said there were no injuries from the blaze.
Nearly 24 hours later on Friday evening, Platoon Chief Stephen Reid said the cause of the fire still hadn’t been determined; he didn’t think the cause would be known until the weekend.
Nor did he have an exact damage estimate, although he said he expects it to be significantly more than $500,000.
Reid also said the building will need an engineer’s assessment to determine whether it is salvageable, and that the city’s chief building official was on the scene Friday.
The Fire Marshal’s Office was notified of the blaze, Reid added, but there won’ t bean investigation because the fire wasn’t deemed suspicious.
About 174 customers in the downtown area lost power at about 1 a.m. Friday because of the fire, according to Peterborough Utilities. Most power was restored by late Monday morning, but a few businesses on George St. between Simcoe and Hunter streets remained closed because of the lack of power.
On Thursday night, firefighters arrived to find flames shooting out the roof. Very quickly, the downtown filled with acrid-smelling smoke.
Firefighters battled in defensive positions to prevent the fire from spreading into other buildings on the downtown block, including the commercial building at 376 George St. N., where Natas Cafe is located on the ground floor (the ground floor also used to house the Community Butcher Shop until it closed at the start of the year).
S net singer said he had roughly 30 firefighters at the scene, and they did a good job of keeping the blaze contained to the one building.
There was a partial roof collapse during the fire, he said.
Shortly before 2 a.m., nearly three hours after the blaze broke out, Snetsinger said the fire was still burning in the walls and crawlspaces.
The interior of the building is sub divided into many small spaces, making the fire difficult to extinguish, he said.
Firefighters used an aerial truck to battle the stubborn blaze.
Snetsinger said crews staged an aggressive attack when they arrived, and he was proud they kept neighbouring buildings safe from flames.
“That’s a good story – it’s tough to stop,” he said.
The fire closed George Street between Brock and Simcoe streets as well as Hunter Street between Water and Aylmer streets, Thursday night. Part of Simcoe St. was also closed too at Water St.
Water was relentlessly pumped through the broken windows of the second storey, above the former Charm Tree Toys and Simple. Snetsinger said he didn’t know whether they were apartments.
By the time Nayler arrived, firefighters had been pumping water directly into the broken window of her studio for more than an hour.
Nayler said she got a midnight phone call from a friend who lives downtown, alerting her to the fire.
She said she didn’ t have any camera equipment in the studio, but there were lots of old negatives and prints in there and she said she was booked solid for photo sitting sin the studio between now and Christmas. Now she’s got no place to work.
Meanwhile the large volume of water used by the firefighters coated streets and walkways in the area as temperatures dipped to -2 C early Friday morning as the city fire department continued to battle the blaze.
One spindly street tree quickly became completely crusted over with ice. Large mounds of fireretardant foam built up like snowdrift sa long Simcoe St ., in front of the Speakeasy.
Shots, a bar across the street, had to close early so patrons could leave; firefighters and police needed to block the street to traffic.
Some people leaving a show at Market Hall were flummoxed to find their cars parked along George St. in the closed-off area. Firefighters had to escort them from the scene.
Some Peterborough Transit routes were detoured because of the street closures and there was congestion for downtown motorists during the street closures.