Fire razes boat business

By William Clarke

FOR THE SOU’WESTER



Friday the 13th didn't bring good news to the owners and employees of Green Bay Fibre Products.

Shortly after 1 a.m. that morning, flames were seen coming from a building at the N.L. company's Harry's Harbour Road location. Five hours later all that remained of the boat shop was a charred mess.

Springdale RCMP and the King's Point volunteer fire department were on the scene quickly but weren't able to save the building. The building that burned was a shed on the property. Since the fire, the company’s business is being carried out in two of its other buildings.

"The building was unoccupied at the time so there were no injuries as a result," said RCMP Cst. Darryl MacMullin about the building that burned. "The fire was put out shortly after 6 a.m. without incident and basically it's still under investigation."

He pegged an initial damage estimate at $300,000, but it could be closer to $500,000. An almost completed fiberglass boat was also destroyed in the fire.

"There's really not much left there to investigate," he said. "It burned to the ground, there's nothing there. And what's there, it's charred. In those situations where you've really got nothing to work with, it's flattened right to the ground, there's not much you can do unless you have a lead of some sort, a suspect a witness who saw something, but this isn't that kind of situation."

According to its membership in the Boat Builders Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, Green Bay Fibre Products has manufactured and sold more than 2,000 recreational and commercial boats since it started in 1983.

The plant includes three separate buildings on five acres of land with deep-water ocean front accessibility. The company also repairs fiberglass boats up to 65 feet and enjoys an international clientele.

"We don't believe arson is a factor at this point," said Cst. MacMullin. "The owners of the building have had trouble over the past few weeks with a transformer box that's directly behind the boat shop. That's an avenue we're going to explore now to see if that might have been a factor."

(William Clarke is the editor of Transcontinental Media’s Nor’wester, which is a contributor to the Sou’Wester.)