STANLEY, N.S. — Midway through a joint training session, Gore, Brooklyn, and Rawdon fire departments were called upon to extinguish a blaze at the nearby airport.
Chris Telder, a deputy fire chief with the Gore Fire Department, said they were paged to a structure fire at the Stanley Airport on Aug. 26 around 8 p.m.
“Upon arrival there, we found one camper trailer was fully involved as well as a small shed that was next to the trailer,” said Telder, who was the incident commander.
Telder said due to the joint training night, they had a large number of firefighters available to attend the call. About two dozen firefighters from the three stations attended the scene.
“When we got there, we ran two lines off our engine,” said Telder. “And we got the flames knocked down fairly quick.”
The older model camper trailer could not be saved. It was burned “right to the frame.” The shed was still standing following the fire, but Telder says the contents and siding sustained considerable damage.
“It's probably going to be a write off,” said Telder. “One of the sides is completely charred. Anything and everything that was plastic – it's all melted.”
He said the freezer inside the shed was “pretty much melted shut.”
Telder said the owner was not on site at the time of the fire, and it was called in by a neighbour who noticed the heavy smoke.
Telder said the fire is not suspicious in nature.
The deputy fire chief commended the teamwork at the fire scene and said it helped to make his first time being incident commander a positive experience. He said Gore had “wonderful support” from Rawdon and Brooklyn, and the response time was fast.
The Stanley Airport is located about 22 kilometres outside Windsor and was built in 1941 to train pilots for the war effort. The Stanley Sport Aviation Association hosts fly in events during the summer, with the final one being the Labour Day Fly-in on Aug. 30-31.
