An early morning fire at Cloverdale Paint on Langford Parkway has left the business scrambling today, but not out of service.
Store manager Al Klestil was called by their security company about an intrusion alarm going off at approximately 4:15 a.m. He was called back a short time later and informed that a fire was in progress and that police and fire personnel were on scene.
When he arrived at about 4:30, the plastics and flammables-filled store was filled with smoke and the sprinkler system was operating, which helped knock down the flames.
By 8:30 a.m. Monday, with water covering the floor of the store and remnants of the shattered glass front door on the sidewalk, Klestil sounded optimistic about the day’s operations.
“It’s definitely going to slow us down a little bit, but with all our contractors we’ve told them to still place their orders and we’d deliver or courier it to their job sites. Hoping to take care of business and get up and running as fast as possible,” he said.
Coming in to find smoke billowing out of the store, but little in the way of flames, was “shocking,” he added.
The store has five employees. As part of the investigation, Langford Fire Rescue inspectors obtained a statement from two individuals were on shift at the end of business Sunday, but Asst. Chief Chris Aubrey said the fire is not being deemed as suspicious at this point.
Unable to see flames when they arrived due to the smoke covering the windows, firefighters forced open the front door and determined the source of the blaze.
“We found the fire was in the counter area and we were able to quickly knock that down,” Aubrey said. “The sprinklers did a good job in containing it to that area and not spreading. Obviously it was a concern of ours that it was a paint store with flammable liquids.”
The possibility of the fire being electrical in nature would be investigated, along with other potential causes, he added.
Adjacent businesses were ventilated to remove smoke, but Aubrey expected them to be able to open Monday. Rough initial damage estimates were between $70,000 and $80,000 for Cloverdale, but it was unknown at the time whether neighbouring suites would claim for smoke damage.
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