Surrey firefighters tackled a huge, 3-alarm blaze at the Mackenzie Sawmill on 117th and 130th early Saturday morning.
Flames broke out around 2 a.m. and quickly spread, burning down most of the facility. When fire crews arrived to the scene, 30 per cent of the structure was engulfed in flames, and firefighters concentrated on keeping the blaze from spreading to neighbouring properties. The fire took place at an area under renovation, but it’s unknown whether the ongoing restoration may have been a contributing factor.
Deputy Fire Chief Karen Fry says no one was injured, but adds that mill fires are always hard to battle.
“It’s a mill, so it’s a lot of heavy timber in the building,” she says. “The layout of the fire in the buildings itself, a lot of machinery.”
This is the third fire for the Mackenzie Sawmill group.
Another fire badly damaged the property in January 2011 and put 120 employees out of work for several months. Only three staff members had been on the site at the time because they were laid off from an earlier blaze in November 2010.
The mill has not been fully operational since then.
“It’s been very hard on a lot of people,” says former millworker Craig Parkes, who has been connected to the mill for 34 years. “There are quite a few people who have been here a long time. This is a second home.”
Fry says a preliminary investigation indicates that there was no suspicious activity.
-with files from Canadian Press
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