An early morning blaze destroyed Salty’s Fish and Chips in Goldstream Village on Saturday.
Police patrolling the area noticed smoke and alerted Langford Fire Rescue at 5 a.m. Twenty-five volunteer fire fighters responded.
Assistant Fire Chief Scott Davidson said windows of the restaurant were black with smoke and close to blowing out when crews arrived on scene. If that had happened, the blaze would have been much harder to contain and may have spread to neighbouring businesses.
“We were able to catch it in time that most of the damage was isolated in the one business,” Davidson said.
Salty’s suffered significant damage from the smoke and heat, while businesses on either side of it have only minor damage from smoke. Because of the age of the building, there were no sprinklers inside Salty’s to help suppress the fire.
Davidson estimates it took 40 minutes for crews to knock out the fire and another two hours to clean up and ventilate the building.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
