A section of a street in downtown New Glasgow, N.S., remains closed Thursday morning following a large fire.
The fire broke out on Provost Street around 3 p.m. Wednesday and thick smoke could be seen pouring from a building.
Mayor Nancy Dicks says three buildings have been destroyed and other buildings were damaged.
“It’s a very sad day for our community,” she said in an email to CTV Atlantic.
Provost is still closed between MacLean and Jury streets. Fire and police teams also remain on site.
There is no word on how the fire started. The investigation is ongoing.
Fire chief responds
The chief of the New Glasgow Fire Department says despite their best efforts, the buildings will not be able to be saved.
“Unfortunately, these three buildings will be a total loss,” said Chief Ross White in an interview with CTV Your Morning’s Amanda Debison on Thursday.
He adds the buildings were not just businesses, but also homes.
“It affects three businesses that were staples of the community and also affected tenants that had housing above the businesses, so it affects a lot of the community right now, I feel for the business owners, and the tenants and I hope we can help them out the best we can,” he said.
“Talking to some of the locals around the town, they’re saying they’re more like staples of the downtown, original buildings, so we’re thinking maybe 100+ years old, which adds to the difficulty in fighting fires in these buildings as with the construction types and the remodelling over the years, it kind of affects how we get our fire tactics,”
The chief says the goal now is to find what started the fire.
“Right now, as day two opens-up we have the road closed and we are waiting for the office of the fire marshal to attend to start investigation to try and find an origin and cause,” he said.
The chief adds he believes the cause of the fire is accidental but said he can’t confirm that until investigations finish.
Impact on businesses
Janice Arnold is the manager at Soley Shoes on Provost Street and was working at the time of the fire.
She says she first saw some smoke between Zelda’s Flower Studio and Proud Pets Pet Supplies.
“And then whatever it was that it caught… it was just a matter of minutes and it was engulfed on the top and then it just started and it just seemed like there was as much as they were fighting to get it, areas would start to spark back up again,” she said.
Arnold calls Zelda’s a landmark and says there will now be fewer people in that part of town.
“We don’t have a lot of businesses left here at it is, as far as retail businesses… we are just continuously losing more merchants,” she said.
Arnold says the fire is “absolutely devastating.”
“Zelda’s was definitely a draw for the street, Sue and all of her artwork that she painted and had up there and the vintage clothing store was very unique. It’s total devastation. The Waffle Bus, it’ll take a long time before they can reopen, the Mamatsu with the water damage, some of the businesses are going to have smoke damage. I know when I came in here this morning, the first thing I could smell was smoke,” she said.
Glenda Livingstone recently started working in downtown New Glasgow and went to Zelda’s for the first time last week.
“I was just getting to know the businesses and in fact I just popped in Zelda’s the other day and was thinking it was a lovely little shop. And it’s actually kind of sad to see the businesses devastated by the fire,” she said, adding she hopes they will rebuild.
Fellow worker Rachel Cormier says the loss of the affected businesses is going to impact the downtown.
“Zelda’s was legendary and it is gone, but hopefully we can rebuild and revitalize the downtown also,” Cormier said.
“Everyone has really come together, everybody cares and everyone wants to help and everybody wants to see better for the downtown and better for the people who have lost everything.”
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Carl Pomeroy
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