Tourists and market-goers will have to wait a few weeks before they can resume shopping at Peddlar’s Village at the St. Jacobs Farmers’ Market, after fire ignited on the roof on May 26.
The main market building, the Harvest Barn and the outdoor vendors weren’t affected and are open for business as usual.
Black smoke was visible coming from Peddlar’s Village, which houses a flea market, food vendors, and some offices, around 1:30 p.m. last Thursday. Woolwich fire chief Rick Pedersen says despite the flames not being visible from the ground, it took two to three hours for it to be fully extinguished.
They were on the scene until approximately 7 p.m. ripping apart the roof and pulling out insulation to ensure there were no sparks left.
The sight of multiple fire trucks at the market wasn’t unfamiliar, as a different building – the former main market building – was destroyed by fire in 2013. It didn’t have a sprinkler system. A new building opened last year to replace it.
Pedersen says the structural damage is pegged at $125,000.
“But we’re still waiting from the market on other costs. So we’re not quite sure. They’re still looking at the costs for the vendors. They don’t know the total, we just know structurally what it was.”
A contractor was doing repairs to the roof at the time and Pedersen says they’re attributing the fire to a propane torch being used, along with sky-high temperatures that day.
Vendors and customers were evacuated when the sprinkler system went off and they watched from outside as 50 firefighters worked on the scene from St. Jacobs, Conestogo, Elmira and Breslau.
![An all-too-familiar scene, fire crews from St. Jacobs, Elmira, Conestogo, and Breslau were called to a fire at the St. Jacobs Farmers’ Market May 26, this time to the roof of the Peddlar’s Village building.[Whitney Neilson / The Observer]](https://www.observerxtra.com/content/images/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/news_marketfire_post.jpg)
“The main fire was put out [quickly], but there were sections that were smoldering away. It ran along the rail and stuff so it had to be cut away.”
The hot weather didn’t make a bad situation any better as firefighters had to ensure they took adequate breaks so as not to get overheated.
“They’ve got to wear that gear with the air packs. It keeps the heat out but it also keeps the heat in. They’re on a 20-minute work cycle and we have to try to get them cooled down and a break for the next half hour or hour before we’ll let them go back in there again. We’ve got to get the core temperature down,” Pederson explained as to why firefighters were seen often going on and off of the roof.
Pedersen credits the crews for the hard work put in on such a hot day, and attributes the sprinkler system for keeping the building standing.
“There were a couple of false roofs in there and blown-in insulation, so that was the problem. So we had to remove all that stuff and try to get at it. It’s very laborious work and especially when it’s a hot day like that. Anything working on heights and roof access is always dangerous, too. The sprinkler system was activated and it knocked the fire down. It saved that whole building,” Pedersen said.
