Fire crews were called to a structure fire on Hector Road in Port Alberni Tuesday morning.
The Port Alberni Fire Department was called around 3:30 a.m. to the fire, and while the crew was en route, the captain upgraded the fire to mutual aid.
The Sproat Lake Volunteer Fire Department was called in to assist with the fire. Water tenders were called to the scene as well as the fire was in an area without fire hydrants.
When crews arrived at the mill in the 5900 block of Hector Road, they found a structure fully engulfed.
Port Alberni’s fire chief, Mike Owens, says it took three hours to extinguish the fire and all crews except a small watch crew were able to leave around 6:30 a.m.
The fire was on a small cedar mill operation, but the structure that was on fire was one of the primary structures.
“There was just a lot of fuel load that was present there both in terms of the structure itself had some heavy timber and then the wood that was being milled at that site there was also some heavy timber that was in there as well as kind of stacks of lumber as well that were involved,” Owens said.
“So it just took a lot of time and effort to pull a lot of that apart in order to suppress the fire.”
Owens says no one was injured in the fire.
While crews were responding to the mill fire, there was a second fire on 14th Avenue and Redford Street.
A hedge caught fire, and crews were able to suppress it before it spread to the nearby house.
Laura Brougham
