Woman describes beginnings of fire that ruined Moose Jaw strip mall

As the sun came up Friday morning, the damage done by a fire to a strip mall on Moose Jaw’s Thatcher Drive came into full view.

The walls on the west side were charred and looked nearly melted, the roof had caved in and shards of building stuck up like spikes from the middle, while the whole structure on that side was covered in sheets of ice from the firefighters’ efforts overnight.

Crews were called about the fire around 7:30 Thursday night to the Dollar Tree in the middle of that section of stores.

Lee Sing was inside the store at the time, buying birthday party supplies with her daughter.

“As we’re checking out, I’m putting stuff on the conveyor belt and we’re all pleased with what we’ve picked out for her party. I said, ‘Something smells funny in this cart.’ And then another lady says, ‘There’s smoke down this aisle’ at the same time,” said Sing.

She and a few people walked around, found the smoke and then tried to put out the fire.

“I know I went through two fire extinguishers because someone brought a second one up and I think the other gentleman went through two or three as well. You just couldn’t get ahead of it,” said Sing.

“We thought we had it for a minute but then the flames just came and went right up the shelving and up towards the roof and we could not get it put out at all.”

At that point, Sing said they all left; a couple of them briefly went back inside to help another woman who hadn’t gone out with the rest of them. She said she and another man were shouting for the woman to leave.

“She did come up to the front and got out as well, so at least everyone got out safely,” said Sing.

Sing said the store went up so fast, she’d never seen anything like it.

Deputy Fire Chief Mike Russell said when crews arrived, the store was filled with white smoke but it soon turned black and things got much worse.

“The door started to shake and then smoke vented out … the doorway and then everything just flared up and all the contents inside that were super-heated ignited and then we had a fully involved centre occupancy,” Russell explained.

There was so much smoke coming out of the building that Russell said the firefighters had a hard time seeing what they were doing in the parking lot for a while.

The firefighters couldn’t go inside so they had to stay out in a defensive position. Russell said they were able to stop the fire from spreading to the east.

“Unfortunately once it got up into the roof line, and with the winds (Thursday) night, it pushed it to the second occupancy as well,” said Russell, referring to the Bulk Barn next to the Dollar Tree.

It’s still not clear how the fire started. Russell said investigators would likely be on scene all day trying to figure that out, as well as interviewing people who’d been in the store at the time.

The crews were battling the blaze for about five hours, then came back in the early morning to take care of some hot spots inside.

“They were playing catch-up from the minute they got here and they worked diligently to get it knocked down,” said Russell.

— With files from Discover Moose Jaw