A massive overnight fire has destroyed the car wash at the Battleford Esso station off highway 4 in Battleford.
Battleford fire were on the scene with a full complement of 20 firefighters to battle the blaze. Fire chief Larry Gabruch reports that they received the call of a structure fire at 12:11 a.m. Tuesday morning.
Upon arrival, Gabruch reported the northern wash bays had fire extending through the roof. They were able to contain the fire to the wash bay area with only a minor breach into the store area.
Three engines worked the fire, and the firefighters stayed on the scene until 5:30 a.m. in the morning.
There was a sense of urgency to fight the fire because of the proximity to the fuel tanks. As a result, two engines were deployed on the east side and west side of the building to ensure they could provide cover for those fuel and propane tanks nearby.
The cold conditions and the damage at the structure made it a challenge for fire crews throughout. Gabruch said that after the roof collapsed they had difficulty getting to the hot spots. One wash bay nearest to the store had a car in it and the car is a total loss as well.
Gabruch said the roof collapsed shortly after fire crews arrived. He believes the fire was burning for some time before someone recognized it and called it in; and was probably not recognized until it breached the roof. After they arrived, the fire crews concentrated their efforts on keeping the fire from getting into the store area.
The likely suspected cause of the blaze, said Gabruch, was a unit heater that was lit in the wash bay area which likely malfunctioned. "Its proximity to where the initial flames breached the roof, those dots kind of line up,' said Gabruch.
That is not yet confirmed as the cause, but Gabruch said that until the weather warms up and they are able to de-ice and look at that appliance, and get some assistance from the gas inspector, that is the best guess.
"It's rare for a unit heater to do that, but I don't believe in coincidences and the fact that that unit heater was fired up earlier that day caught my attention," said Gabruch. He also said nothing else was located in the wash bay that could have caused the fire to ignite.
As for the one car in the wash bay area, that was located away from where the flames erupted. It was in wash bay number one while the flames were in bays two and three.
The car was a total loss, but firefighters did prevent the flames from entering the store. While it did penetrate the ceiling, there was minimal damage to the store itself; however, the stock in the store were impact by the freezing.
Conditions were challenging due to minus-28 temperatures and minus-40 wind chills. In those conditions water freezes instantaneously, said Gabruch.
The bone-chilling temperatures were tough on the crews. Gabruch said he rotated his crews every opportunity he got, and a rehab unit was off site.
Gabruch reports the crew did really well in the conditions. There were no injuries to report, apart from some minor frostbite.
Also on the scene was RCMP, who provided them resources for traffic control. They stayed on scene for multiple hours to contain the area. As for fire crews, there were no other fire departments called to the scene as the Battleford department had enough resources to fight the fire.
Gabruch said the fire department plans to "hold the scene" for the next few days until it warms up, and then continue their investigation and hopefully de-ice the unit heater. A rough estimate of the damage is likely to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Freelance photographer Averil Hall has provided the News-Optimist with photos from the scene.
