At least 30 firefighters from Maple Ridge and Mission, British Columbia, worked through Saturday night and into Sunday morning fighting a fire that consumed at least half of Whonnock cedar mill’s main building at 27400 Lougheed Highway. It could be a few months, at least, before Fraser Cedar Products’ shake and shingle operation is back up and operational.
This was the second fire at the mill in the past year. Last November, the mill suffered another massive fire when a welding spark destroyed the chipper building.
Elsewhere, authorities are investigating the cause of a fire Sunday evening that burned a large wooden pole barn filled with lumber at Griffin’s Building Materials in Hudson Falls, NY. There were no injuries. The lumberyard, located along the Feeder Canal, is closed Sundays.
Fires, Sawmills
The fire at Whonnock cedar mill in Maple Ridge, BC, engulfed the older half of the main building, including all the machinery required in receiving and manufacturing logs into shakes and shingles, said the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Times. All the wood in the building was burned, leaving them to sort through mounds of twisted and tangled metal.
As firefighters arrived to the Griffin sawmill building at Hudson Falls, NY, they found a fully involved structure and difficult access to it, according to the Post Star. Hudson Falls Police knocked down a fence to get in. Also, firefighters were not able to attack from the back of the structure because the back was so narrow against the canal.
The roughly 250 feet by 40 feet wooden pole structure with a steel roof was located among several buildings on the property and next to several trees in the back along the canal. At one point the roof collapsed.