SPRING BAY—The main administration office and store, recreation and washroom facilities building at Stanley Park Campgrounds was destroyed in a fire last Tuesday.
Tina Tolsma, who owns the business along with her husband Randy said, “no one was inside the building or injured from the fire. That is what really matters.”
Philip Gosse, fire chief of the Central Manitoulin Volunteer Fire Department explained, “we contained the fire to the one main building. Three walls and the roof are still up on the building.”
Luckily, “No one was in the building at the time of the fire, and no one was hurt,” said Mr. Gosse.
“It’s hard to say what the cause of the fire was and where it started, although it must have started in the back end of the building where the washrooms are because the back wall was down by the time we got to the fire,” said Mr. Gosse. “The building was not fully engulfed in flames when we arrived on the scene, but there was a lot of flames and smoke.”
“It was obviously a real nice building,” said Mr. Gosse.
The fire department received a call of the fire at about 1:20 pm on Tuesday, December 6, said Mr. Gosse. He pointed out it was fortunate firefighters were able to contain the fire to the one (metal) building as there were trailers as close as 50 feet from the scene of the fire.
Mr. Gosse explained, “we dumped a ton of water on the fire. We had seven fire trucks and 15 firefighters on the scene, and each truck holds about 1,000-1,500 litres of water; we must have dumped about 20,000 litres of water on the fire to put it out.”
“I want to thank all the members of our fire crew who all pulled together and were on the scene,” said Mr. Gosse. “I have firefighters that own their businesses, are teachers or work for other businesses. It is great that they all responded so quickly to the fire. The fire took place on an afternoon when everyone would be at work. Thank you to our great fire crew.”
“I also want to thank all the employers who allowed our firefighters to leave their work to fight the fire,” said Mr. Gosse. “If they didn’t allow them to leave their place of work, I would be fighting the fire on my own.”
“We hope to rebuild as soon as possible, although this time of the year makes it difficult for construction to take place,” said Ms. Tolsma. The couple had insurance on the building and the business. The fire “definitely won’t close us down but it will make things really tough.”
