Only a month after Stag II Barbers was gutted by a fire, Port Alberni fire crews responded to another fire at the same 10th Avenue Plaza.
A sign above Serious Coffee caught fire due to an electric short, according to Chief fire prevention officer Randy Thoen.
Fire crews isolated the incident by hitting the breaker and shutting off the power supply to the sign. No other businesses in the plaza were damaged.
Serious Coffee is still closed due to smoke damage from the previous fire next door, the cause of which was also electrical in nature.
Deputy Fire Chief Wes Patterson says he doesn’t know if these two fires were related. “At this point I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not going to speculate.”
Thoen suggested the recent cold weather may have had something to do with the electrical short. “The freeze, thaw can have that effect,” he said. “Without looking at it, I wouldn’t be able to say for sure.”
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