Popular restaurant, apartment buildings destroyed in Sackville, N.B., fire

With the smell of smoke still in the air, all that’s left of a historical building in Sackville, N.B., is a massive pile of rubble.

A major fire broke out Friday morning, completely destroying a popular restaurant and apartment buildings.

“It’s a sight and a feeling that we’ll probably never forget,” said Jenna Miller, a Mount Allison University student who is now without a home.

Miller lives with three other Mount Allison students. Their Good Friday started off with the smell of smoke, which Rachel Carson initially wrote off as their furnace. But when the smell got stronger, she knew it was something more serious.

“I got out of my room and looked to my left and Lucy’s room was full of smoke. So then all of us were like, ‘OK, we need to get out of here,’ and we just grabbed as much stuff as we could,” said Carson. “There was actually flames coming out of the side of our building to the point where it was actually hot on our arms when we were walking down that way.”

For the most part, the students grabbed laptops, cell phones and odds and ends, but Lauren Steele also made sure she was able to get her neighbour’s dogs out of the building.

“I knocked on the door and there was no one answering so I just opened the door and I knew she had two dogs so I grabbed the leash I saw at the door and I just got them out of there,” said Steele.

“You don’t want to leave anyone behind,” she said. “The stuff doesn’t matter, you can replace all of that.”

Sackville Fire and Rescue were called to the scene around 9:30 a.m. where officials say they were met with smoke and flames at the rear of the building.

“Within half an hour, fire started coming out of the top of the building and then I watched as the building came down, unfortunately,” said Municipality of Tantramar Mayor Andrew Black.

Fire crews from Dorchester, Point de Bute, Amherst and Memramcook all were called into assist.

“Listening to the firefighters afterwards just talking about that, saying unfortunately and fortunately it happened on Good Friday because there were firefighters around,” said Black. “It was a day off of work for a lot of people so they were able to be here, and we had, at one point, 60 firefighters on the ground.”

The fire resulted in a total loss, one that Municipality Councillor for Downtown Sackville Josh Goguen says will be felt by the entire community.

“If you talk to anyone who has either gone to Mount A or lived in Sackville, Joey’s has always been a staple in town and it’s definitely a huge loss for the community,” said Goguen.

“I’ve eaten [at Joey’s] many times from lunches to suppers to staff parties for my work, definitely it will be missed and hopefully they bounce back,” he added.

Right now, the cause of the fire is unknown and officials say the Fire Marshal is investigating.

Following the aftermath, the four roommates stood dressed in matching donated track pants and stared at what’s left of the apartment they’ve lived in for the last three years.

“It was just a crazy experience to see everything go up in flames,” said Miller. “We had no idea the severity of it until the day just continuously progressed.”

While there is definitely still some shock and disbelief, the four friends are thankful for the support of the community.

“Right away, everyone was trying to cover all our bases,” said Lucy Newman. “Like housing, clothing, food -- any possible thing that we weren’t even thinking of in the moment, there was someone who was trying to figure it out.”

“Even just students. At the chapel, they had a donation centre. Seeing students you’ve been in classes with folding clothes for us to go through, bringing food, seeing professors going to Moncton to get us stuff because it was Good Friday and it was obviously closed here, it was definitely a good feeling and we’re very grateful,” she added.

Mount Allison activated its emergency fund program to help with housing, essential services and donations. Following an outreach of support, clothing and personal items were donated quickly and now only monetary donations are needed.

“Being in a small town and just how small our school is and knowing how people are, I think we wouldn’t have expected anything less,” said Carson. “It’s just been really nice to see how supportive everybody’s been for us because this has been pretty stressful for the past few hours -- or day.”

A GoFundMe has also been set up to help support the four friends.