Woodstock and Debec fire departments respond to fire that destroyed mill buildings and equipment on Oct. 31 in Belleville
A late afternoon fire raced through a wood mill operation near Woodstock Thursday afternoon, Oct. 31, destroying buildings, equipment and one vehicle.
Woodstock Fire Department Chief Harold McLellan said his department responded to the call reporting an ongoing fire at 3:29 p.m. at the lumber yard in Belleville, N.B., just west of Woodstock on Route 540.
McLellan said crews arrived at the scene at 3:43 p.m. to find the fire fully involved.
He said the mill is owned and operated by Hugo Filion. He explained the mill crew was shutting down operations for the day when they noticed the fire.
McLellan said the crew’s initial attempts to douse the fire failed, adding this type of operation provides the fuel to help the fire spread quickly.
He explained that the hot bearings on running mill equipment, wooden structures, and sawdust helped fuel the blaze.
While the mill operators had water on hand and kept sawdust and other debris removed from the operation, they could not keep the blaze from spreading quickly.
“He was running a good operation,” said McLellan.
The fire chief said the blaze destroyed a series of attached open wooden buildings with tin roofs. It also destroyed mill equipment and a truck to shuttle wood and equipment throughout the lumber yard.
McLellan said he reached out to Debec Fire Department Deputy Chief Chris Foster while en route to the fire located near the Richmond Corner exit from the four-lane Route 95, which connects Woodstock with the Canada-U.S. border crossing at Houlton, Maine.
He said Debec provided mutual aid through a tanker and manpower, who set up a water shuttle to the fire scene.
Ambulance N.B. and Western Region RCMP also attended the fire scene. McLellan said there were no injuries reported.
McLellan said no injuries were reported.
The chief said the structure was “too far gone,” to determine the cause of the blaze, other than the approximate location where it began.
The fire spread from the mill structure to surrounding log piles. Mill crews used their equipment to move and relocate logs. The firefighters suppressed the fire before it reached cellophane-wrapped lumber nearby.
While the fire occurred on Halloween, McLellan said it was unrelated to the traditional day of tricks and treats. He said this year’s Halloween, as has become the norm in recent years, proved quiet.
He said that differs significantly from a decade or more ago when fire crews spent Halloween night responding to burning tires or debris on roadways or structure fires of abandoned buildings.
