Foul play has not been ruled out as the cause of a fire which burned along an outside wall of Arnie’s General Store in Crozier early yesterday morning.
Fort Frances OPP S/Sgt. Hugh Dennis said officers were called to the scene at 5:20 a.m., just over 30 minutes after the Alberton Volunteer Fire Department had started to extinguish the blaze.
“We’re investigating to determine the cause of the fire, whether it was deliberately set or accidental,” S/Sgt. Dennis said yesterday.
“We’re doing interviews with the neighbours to see if they can help out. If there was anything they might have seen,” he added.
S/Sgt. Dennis also noted specialists from the Ontario Fire Marshal’s Office and the Kenora Identification Unit have been asked to assist in this case.
Alberton Fire Chief Sandy Haney said he is uncertain what started the fire, noting he didn’t want to speculate on the cause.
Haney said the fire was burning in three different spots when he and about 12 other firefighters arrived at the scene around 4:45 a.m., with clouds of smoke billowing off the building.
“There was no fire on the inside [wall], it was all outside,” he noted. “The timbers on the outside were burning.”
Two men were sleeping in the apartment above the store when the fire broke out, and were oblvious to it until the sound of the fire trucks and firefighters woke them up.
“There was smoke upstairs in the apartment when we got there,” Haney said, but added both were removed from the room without injury.
Although the west wall looks quite singed, Haney said repairing the damage shouldn’t be too difficult since the structural integrity of the wall wasn’t compromised.
“It’s just superficial,” he said. “We had to cut in the wall on a spot to check one area but there’s isn’t a large amount of damage.”
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
