Face of Nation : A fire that began Friday and has ravaged a St. Catharines, Ont., flower farm still isn’t completely out, says the fire department.
He said it will take the better part of Sunday to get all the hot spots out, but rain in the area will help. The smoke on Saturday affected local air quality and officials from Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment were on the scene, collecting air samples for analysis.
“Preliminary downwind air monitoring results are below emergency screening values,” Andrew Buttigieg said in an email Saturday. “Local watersheds have been sampled and monitored. Early results show dissolved oxygen and pH readings being good.” Buttigieg said the city is collecting douse water that is being trucked to Port Dalhousie sewage treatment plant as a precaution.
No one was injured in the fire at Pioneer Flower Farms that began late on Friday night, although flames spread to and destroyed about four or five residential buildings that housed migrant workers, according to Jeff McCormick, acting fire chief for St. Catharines Fire and Emergency Management Services.
The fire was in a structure of about 650,000 to 700,000 square feet in total that is a series of greenhouses and outbuildings. The fire also spread across the grass and caused a “significant” bush fire, the city of St. Catharines said in a release.
Firefighters were called to the farm shortly after 11 p.m. ET, and crews from five departments were able to contain it after several hours. Many people from the area, including neighbours, went to the farm to help. At one point, they set up an irrigation pipeline to bring water to one part of the fire.
