False ceilings made knock down challenging: deputy chief
Nighttime fire damages main office at Ryan’s Ridge Campground and RV Park in South Rawdon
Volunteer firefighters spent much of the evening Oct. 18 battling a stubborn house fire in South Rawdon.
Brooklyn’s deputy fire chief George Pineo said the 2.5-storey home, which also served as the main office and general store for Ryan’s Ridge Campground and RV Park, was badly damaged.
“Smoke was pretty heavy coming out of it when I arrived,” said Pineo.
Firefighters were called to the former Boutilier’s Glen Campground location at 9:04 p.m. Mutual aid was requested, with Hantsport, Rawdon and Windsor fire departments lending assistance. About 30 firefighters were involved with the knock down.
“The bulk of the fire was concentrated on the living room end, the left side of the house. It was quite a stubborn fire due to the construction method — the balloon-frame construction,” said Pineo in a phone interview.
He noted there were “a couple false ceilings” that made getting the fire under control much more difficult.
“There was about a foot of air space in-between the old plaster ceiling and the new ceiling they made, so fire was able to run pretty much freely across that space,” he said.
Pineo suggested anyone who is considering making renovations to an older home should take the preventative measure of removing old ceilings and walls.
“Tear out the old and that way, (if there is a fire) you’re not fighting with two and three layers of material — that slows down and hinders the process of putting a fire out.”
No one was injured during the fire and the call wrapped up in the wee morning hours of Oct. 19.
“The owners of the campground were staying in a trailer behind it and they were doing work to the building,” said Pineo, noting that the work was primarily cosmetic, like painting.
Pineo said the insurance company will have to decide if the home is salvageable — the first floor was extensively damaged while the upstairs largely sustained smoke and water damage.
“Mostly, nowadays, they have a tendency to just tear it down and replace it.”