Officials narrow down ignition point of Roofmart fire

While officials are still trying to determine a cause of the fire at Roofmart that caused more than $1 million worth of damage, they “have a pretty good idea” where it started, Fire Chief Dan Stack said.

“It was started outside the back right-hand (southwest) corner of the building, if you were to look at it from Lasalle Boulevard,” Stack said.

The vast majority of the damage was caused to Roofmart's stock of roofing supplies, as well as the back of the building, he said. The back area contained shingles, tar and Styrofoam – all the common roofing materials one would find at a roofing business.

“Amazingly, there was very little damage to the front two-thirds of the building,” Stack said, adding it was only smoke and some water damage that affected that part of the building. “The guys that fought this fire did an excellent job, and the sprinkler system they had in place saved quite a bit of it.”

It's too early to speculate as to a cause of the fire, but Stack said officials are not ruling it out as a suspicious fire, although they aren't calling it suspicious at this time.

The fire was completely out between 8:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. after firefighters from four stations battled what Stack called a “stubborn” fire.

The Ontario Fire Marshal's Office was on scene around 10:30 a.m. One representative from the OFM will be working with Greater Sudbury Fire Service and Greater Sudbury Police Service in the investigation. It is difficult at this point to even guess at how long the investigation will take, Stack said.

“It's a slow process,” Stack said. “The normal sequence is to determine the cause of the fire, and that way the police will know how much work they will need to do, depending on what the cause is determined to be.”

As of 3 p.m., firefighters were working to remove a large pile of debris so investigators can look over the entire area to identify how the fire was started.

Stack said investigators also brought in the Ministry of the Environment because of the water and ditching in the area, “and if anyone has any issue with debris (from the Roofmart fire) in their yards, they are asked to get in touch with Roofmart's insurance company.”

Contact information may be provided in a later update, he said.

“There were quite a few yards we saw during a drive around that had a lot of Styrofoam, which isn't toxic, so there's no need to worry about its health effects,” Stack said.

If homeowners want to take it upon themselves to clean up their own yard, the MOE has given the green light to go ahead and do it, he added. If those affected residents want Roofmart's insurance company to take care of it, they will do that.

The calls to Greater Sudbury Fire Service regarding the Roofmart blaze and the Nim Bin fire at Osaka Sushi came in about eight minutes apart, Stack said. The first call at 2:34 a.m. was for Roofmart, while the second call at 2:52 was for the Nim Bin.

The next update will likely come July 20, Stack said.

Posted by Arron Pickard