Three buildings in Virden’s classic downtown were destroyed by a fire. The fire that devastated an unbroken line of joined heritage buildings, left a gaping blackened hole on Seventh Avenue between Nelson Street and Wellington Street and shut down four active businesses on that street.
With some 20 firefighters from both Elkhorn and Virden stations, and a track hoe from Sparks Sand & Gravel, Wallace District Fire Department stopped the blaze before it spread to Frank Van Den Hoek’s Equipment for Independence, the business directly next to, and down-wind of the blaze.
That store plus three other businesses, Physio First, Angie’s Natural Health & More, plus Virden Sport & Fashion have been without services including power since the fire.
This fire, which started in the basement of The Source, followed a previous fire alarm to that same store, just 12 hours earlier. Fire Chief Brad Yochim has termed the fire ‘suspicious’. The Office of the Fire Commissioner is investigating the fire.
Timeline
WDFD responded to the alarm sounding at the computer and electronics store The Source, on Seventh Avenue at 6:10 p.m. Friday night.
“We got there and there was a light smoke in the building,” says Yochim. What they found within the building was a small guitar amp on fire, on the bench.
“We carried the guitar amp out the back door and put it out. There was no fire in the structure whatsoever,” states the fire chief. “The fire Friday night is totally not related to the fire on Saturday.”
However, by Saturday morning at 5:43 p.m. the fire department received the second call to that building. The Source was filled with smoke when the fire crew arrived.
“It took us probably an hour to find the fire, which we found in the basement. A totally separate area from where the first fire was,” Yochim says.
The fire could not be contained to the one building in this row of adjoined, century plus buildings and a track hoe was employed to tear down the next door building (two store fronts) owned by Christy Gabrielle – most recently known as Future Features.
“Once we found the fire it was too far advanced to stop it. It got up into the attic of The Source and spread across the attic space into two adjacent buildings and into part of the roof on the art gallery as well.”
Firefighters searched the upper floor of suites. No one was at home but firefighters found and rescued one cat from the smoky upstairs.
This was a 15-hour fire, from the time the alarm rang until firefighters were home safe. Five fire trucks - the entire WDFD fleet from Elkhorn and Virden and 20 firefighters fought the blaze from the ground, from a man lift and from the roof of Terry McLean’s art gallery.
With copious quantities of water being poured on the three-building blaze, Virden Mayor Jeff McConnell put out a plea for Virden residents to curtail their use of water that Saturday.
“The town water system kept up. We were in touch with the Town during the whole process, to make sure there was never any water issues for the rest of the town,” explained Yochim. McConnell explained, “Our manager of utilities came in to work. Our staff was watching the water; our reservoir was dropping during the event.”
While there was sufficient supply to meet Virden’s needs, the mayor’s request for water rationing was precautionary.
“We were watching [the level] drop and we knew the fire was significant so we sent out the request for water rationing, to prevent a concern later on.”
That concern could turn into a water quality advisory, had the supply of treated water been depleted.
He said, “If they had depleted it to a certain level in the reservoir, we would have to by-pass the treatment plant for the whole town.” That would mean a boil water advisory. However, the reservoir level built back up by Saturday afternoon as soon as the firefight eased.
Terry McLean’s building suffered some roof damage.
“There were some hot spots the firefighters had to get at on the corner of the roof,” explains Yochim. “We removed some artifacts earlier in the day, just as the fire was starting to get large... but there was still some stuff in the building.”
This fire had the potential to take an entire block of buildings, with the wind from the northwest, but it was stopped with decisive action.
“I deem it as a success,” stated Yochim. “I mean, we saved the art gallery building,” he said referring to McLean’s beautiful historic building which housed originals and prints.
“We saved artifacts in there that are basically priceless, probably, if not irreplaceable. We did save the rest of the buildings in that block. Its unfortunate we had to sacrifice one building to put the fire out. But that was the only way we were going to stop it. If we hadn’t done that it would have carried on and on and on.”
The fire department had help from individuals and businesses. The fire chief said there were offers to haul water.
Others who helped included Brock Koop with Longshot Services, Sacred Heart Parish, Boston Pizza, Chicken Chef, Carla and Lance McLean, Beth Collier, along with the work of Town of Virden employees and anonymous donors who dropped off food and water.
No one was injured in the blaze or fighting the fire. The Office of Fire Commissioner is investigating Virden’s downtown fires Friday and Saturday, along with the RCMP.
