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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Roofing company recovering fast from huge blaze

By: Aldo Santin

24/10/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

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Damage from the blaze that started Thursday evening has been estimated at $8 million, but that figure is expected to climb.

Even though SPAR-Marathon Roofing Supplies' building burned to the ground Thursday evening in a spectacular fire, its employees aren't going to get more than a long weekend out of it.

Jeff Barnard, the company's regional manager, said a contingency plan has already been put in place. A temporary building will be set up near its East Elmwood industrial park site early next week and materials destroyed in the blaze have been reordered.

"If you need a roof, we'll be back in the game Monday or Tuesday next week," he said. "We have large commitments to our customers. They've been phoning us all day and telling us they're supporting us. We need to get things rolling. Our outside storage is intact and so are our delivery trucks."

"When life throws you lemons, you have to deal with it. This is an incredible inconvenience; all of our records and papers are gone, but nobody got hurt. Thank God for that."

Barnard said he has no idea how the fire might have started. He received a call at home Thursday evening at 7:50 p.m. and by the time he drove the six minutes it takes to get to work, everything was already up in flames.

"I couldn't even begin to speculate what caused the fire. By the time I got there, it was severely burning. It was intense. There's nothing left. It's a mass of twisted steel. It brings a tear to your eye when you realize how much time and effort went into building that place and how devastating that fire was."

Damage was so extensive to the building that investigators are having a difficult time pinpointing the cause, a senior fire department official said Friday.

Ken Sim, deputy chief of the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service, said four units in the 14-unit industrial strip mall were destroyed, including SPAR-Marathon and a building-supplies firm.

Firefighters remained at the scene until Friday evening dousing small piles of burning debris.

"We're just trying to make sure all the debris is extinguished," Sim said.

SPAR-Marathon is in an industrial area south of Nairn Avenue, near the corner of Keenleyside Street and Thomas Avenue. A second business, Umingmak Supply Ltd., was also destroyed in the fire.

Sim said it looks like the fire began at the roofing company and spread to the neighbouring units.

Damage is estimated at $8 million, but that total is likely to climb.

"I wouldn't be surprised if the estimate goes up," he said. "There was a lot of water and smoke damage to the adjacent units that I don't think has been calculated yet."

Sim said the fire was the worst since the lab fire at the University of Manitoba's Fort Garry campus in March.

"It was a pretty stubborn, extensive fire," he said.

Firefighters were called in from the department's off-duty list and, at one point, almost half of the city's on-duty firefighters were involved in the blaze.

Police evacuated stores and restaurants in the area, including the Best Sleep Centre and the Elmwood Legion.

A Manitoba Conservation spokesman said the department was not called in to test air quality while foul smoke from the huge blaze spread.

-- With files from Bill Redekop

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 24, 2009 A5

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