Firefighters in Cap-Pelé, N.B. were kept busy on Victoria Day battling a fire that destroyed a prominent local business.
Firefighters from four departments were needed to fight a fire at Cormier Brothers Fisheries on Monday morning.
Cap-Pelé Fire Chief Ronald Cormier says it escalated quickly after an unexpected development.
“We sent guys inside to put the fire out … suddenly, a big fire, and so I took the guys out from this inside of the smokehouse and everything collapsed down,” he said.
Cormier says he believes propane tanks inside the family business blew up.
All the firefighters got out safely and began battling the blaze from outside, but winds quickly shifted and spread the flames to nearby buildings, he said.
By the end, a fish processing plant and two smokehouses were reduced to charred rubble.
Cormier says the holiday weekend proved to be a good thing for the crews fighting the fire.
“I'm glad it was a holiday because there was a lot of firefighters around,” he said.
Now, piles of unusable herring and racks of fish that were being smoked lie at the site.
The facility employed about 25 people, 10 of whom were inside when the fire started.
They are now all out of work.
Jerry Walsh, who visited the site on Tuesday, is one of them.
“Absolutely devastating to me. I can't believe it. I can just imagine what our boss is feeling,” Walsh said.“It's a terrible, terrible thing. It’s heartbreaking actually.”
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Jonathan MacInnis
