Acting fire chief Rob Hogan estimates crews will be working until “close to 6 p.m.” to ensure the fire is extinguished.
Smoke billowed over Saskatoon’s industrial area on Wednesday as firefighters battled to bring a major structure fire under control.
Late Wednesday morning, the fire department received “a number of calls” about a possible fire at Prestige Flooring & Hardwood on Jasper Avenue, according to acting fire chief Rob Hogan.
“First-arriving crews found heavy fire and smoke coming out the front door area,” Hogan said. “They made sure everyone was out of the building, and they started to attack the fire.”
Not long after the first crews arrived, the incident commander called for a second alarm “due to the nature of the fire and the amount of combustibles that were in this building,” Hogan said.
“This business is flooring, so there’s carpet, glue, hardwood — all that sort of stuff in there. That’s what was burning, and it’s a heavy fire load, and you can smell the acrid smoke.”
At first, firefighters set up two ladder trucks to “attack the fire from the top,” Hogan said. But they pulled back when they realized that the roof and walls were already badly damaged and at risk of collapse.
At the height of the response, six engines, two ladders, the battalion chief and the fire incident command unit were working together at the scene.
“We’re currently operating with one ladder, and we’re going to be putting some crews at one of the doors to try to hit some fire pockets that are in the back of the building,” Hogan said about two hours after the first calls about the fire came in.
Hogan estimated crews will be working until “close to 6 p.m.” to make sure the fire is extinguished.
Hogan said the situation could have been much worse if it had happened earlier this week, when the city was blanketed by dense, stagnant, smoky air.
“We’re fortunate that the wind right now is blowing to the west, keeping (the smoke) away from us,” he said.
A fire investigator was at the scene, gathering evidence and interviewing witnesses.
Hogan said he had not yet been able to see inside the building, but from the “heavy fire damage to the front part of the building” that he could see, as well as the dense smoke, he estimated that the final damage report is “going to be quite substantial.”
The smoke may look dramatic and smell noxious, but Hogan said he wanted to reassure Saskatonians that the fire department has the situation well in hand.
“This fire is right along the highway, so there’s going to be a lot of public interest,” he said. “And with all the smoke we’ve had in the last few days, it’s important that we get the message out that we have this under control.”
The Saskatoon Star Phoenix has created an Afternoon Headlines newsletter that can be delivered daily to your inbox so you are up to date with the most vital news of the day. Click here to subscribe.
With some online platforms blocking access to the journalism upon which you depend, our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark thestarphoenix.com and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed. Click here to subscribe.