TUPPERVILLE, NS - Two vacant buildings went up in smoke in Annapolis County last week.
The first fire occurred on July 21 at around 10:45 p.m. in Tupperville.
Fire Chief Randy Sheridan, of the Bridgetown Volunteer Fire Department, said that when firefighters arrived, the building was fully involved, with nothing left of the building by the time the fire was put out to determine how it was started.
However, Sheridan said that there was still power going to the house when they arrived, so there may be a possibility that was the cause.
“With power still going to the house there is still that possibility,” said Sheridan. “But without enough of the house left after the fire damage to be able to investigate, it’s hard to say what was the actual cause.”
A few days after that incident, local firefighters were dispatched to a different vacant house fire, which occurred at 2322 Perotte Rd., in Annapolis Royal.
Malcom Francis, chief of the Annapolis Royal Volunteer Fire Department, said the fire was reported at 3:10 a.m. July 23.
Along with Annapolis Royal, fire departments from Bridgetown, Lawrencetown, North Queens, Port Lorne, and Nictaux offered mutual aid to fight the fire, while the Bear River Volunteer Fire Department provided coverage at the Annapolis Royal station. Firefighters were on scene for approximately five hours battling the blaze.
Unlike the fire in Tupperville, this fire was deemed suspicious. However, just like with the previous fire, once it was finally extinguished, little evidence was left for an investigation.
“It’s a hard job to figure them out, there’s not enough left of them to do a proper investigation on them, but we do as best we can,” said Francis.
“We bring excavators in to try to finish demolishing, so we can extinguish the fire completely, and of course, once you bring a piece of equipment in, your chances of having anything to investigate is pretty slim.”
A brief investigation did still occur on the same afternoon, which included Francis, the fire marshal, and an RCMP member from the Bridgetown detachment.
Francis added that, while he can’t say for certain, he believes both fires seem quite suspicious, due to their similarities.
“Just that both structures were vacant buildings and the Bridgetown fire was on Saturday night and the Perotte fire was early in the Monday morning,” said Francis.
“I guess I can say is that when you get two fires like this back to back, you kind of go to bed at night sleeping with one eye open.”
Cons. Dominic Laflamme with the Bridgetown RCMP detachment said an ongoing investigation is in effect into the fires.
“We are still working on both of these fires in cooperation with both of the fire marshal’s office, and these are two ongoing investigations,” said Laflamme.
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“At this point, it is too early obviously to come to a conclusion, but we are looking at these fires and of course are keeping in mind the ones that happened in April, so, looking for evidence if we can connect the fires, or if they’re isolated, but we are not too sure at this point.”
