North Bay Fire Chief Jason Whiteley has pegged damage caused by Friday's downtown fire at over two million dollars.
The blaze totally destroyed two buildings along the 100 block of Main St. containing six businesses. Literacy Nipissing, and two unoccupied businesses, one a former sushi restaurant, and the other, the former location of Hair Bizarre, are a total loss.
See: 'Suspicious' blaze sends firefighter to hospital with frostbite
The Chief says he continues to treat the fire as "suspicious" but the fire marshal's office will not be doing an investigation, because the damage is too extensive,
"We are still working on a dollar figure but it will be 2 million+," said Whiteley.
Whiteley believes the early morning blaze started before 12:30 a.m. in the former Sushi restaurant and quickly spread to a former Hair Bizzare salon,
Fighting a fire in minus 23 temperatures caused one firefighter to be treated at hospital for frostbite to his legs and was released the same day. "He is at home recovering and he will be fine," added Whiteley.
The local office of the Canadian Red Cross has been assisting those displaced by the fire.
“Some people didn’t come through us, but we assisted 13 people. They are all adults, no children. There was one young lady who is due in about seven days. We helped with food, clothing, bus passes, and hotel rooms,” said spokesman John Best.
See: Canadian Red Cross helps people displaced by downtown fire
The alarm was raised at 12:30 Friday morning. Firefighters were able to stop the fire at Vic Fedeli's office and the Cedar Tree Restaurant, but everything in between has been consumed in the fire.
See: Major downtown fire
"Our guys went into the building but there was too much fire to safely attack it, so we went out and went defensive which means we're basically just pouring water into the inside but we were really concentrating our efforts on finding the location where we were going to make the stop so the Fedeli building and the Cedar Tree Restaurant is where we made our stops and conceded the buildings in between."
