Saint John firefighters have extinguished a fire that broke out in a trio of connected vacant buildings in the north end.
Platoon chief Brian Wilson of the Saint John fire department tells CHSJ News crews arrived on scene at the corner of Albert and Metcalf streets at around 5:30am, there was heavy fire coming predominantly from the middle of the three buildings which started in the lower floors and worked its way up through the building.
“When I arrived on scene there was heavy fire coming from the roof of the middle building on Metcalf Street. There’s one building on the upper side of that, that basically is the only exposure to that so our main concern was to protect that exposure and then begin the operations of extinguishing this fire,” says Wilson.
We’re told that the condition of the buildings are poor.
“They are empty, so we have to do an investigation as to why they may have caught fire,” says Wilson.
One firefighter was tended to at the scene by paramedics after taking in ‘a mouthful of smoke’ but was released.
(Photos courtesy of Joe Comeau)
Vacant building fires are always challenging. If possible, the structure needs to be searched.If there are nearby occupied homes that adds to the challenge as we need to do whatever we can, often with limited manpower,to contain the fire. #saintjohn #sjcouncil @IAFFCanada pic.twitter.com/4FHVArsSTE
— SJFFs (@IAFFLocal771) November 14, 2017
