Fire department makes short work of East Ferris garage fire

Nobody was hurt, and the East Ferris fire department made short work of a fire at the municipality’s public works garage, this past Saturday, March 5.

At around 10 that morning, Gilles Bessette and his wife were heading to the Corbeil trail to walk their dog when they noticed smoke coming from the public works garage. They called 911, and they weren’t the only ones. Mayor Pauline Rochefort mentioned a “few calls were immediately placed by citizens,” and their diligence “made a big difference as far as response time.”

As it was a Saturday, Mayor Rochefort added, many members of the volunteer fire department were available, “so we did a get a very solid response.” Moreover, the public works garage stands “right across the road from the fire hall in Corbeil,” and “those three things allowed for a very strong response.”

Around noon the fire was extinguished. Now the fire chief and the fire marshall are investigating the cause, as well as the extent of the damage. “The equipment within and the building did suffer smoke and fire damage,” the mayor said, but no dollar amount has been provided yet.

There was gas and propane tanks within and around the building, and the situation “could have been much worse,” the mayor explained.

Services were not disrupted by the fire—the roads were still maintained—and municipal staff went into action to deal with the fire’s impact. The chief administrative officer, Jason Trottier, began working with the insurance company, and Antoine Boucher, the director of public works, ran the equipment through some tests to see how they held up.

The mayor mentioned how “the communities nearby, the City of North Bay, Callander, Chisolm and Bonfield all reached out immediately to see how they could help,” offering equipment loans or services “because everyone knew there was a rainstorm and snowstorm coming, and they offered to cover some of the shifts” if needed.

Although the help was not needed, it was appreciated, and hearing from the surrounding mayors “was really terrific.”

“We’re very grateful as a community to our fire department,” Mayor Rochefort said. “It was really well done.”

David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.