UP IN SMOKE? FIRE OUT BACK NEW POT SHOP CLOSE CALL FOR DOWNTOWN

Mark Clairmont | MuskokaTODAY.com

GRAVENHURST — A new business, a Good Samaritan and a close call.

Downtown Gravenhurst avoided another near disaster Friday afternoon when a fire erupted out back in the laneway behind the new True North cannabis shop due to open on Muskoka Road south on Thursday.

It’s was almost up in smoke for the prominent business building under renovation.

Barista Rose Dyer was in the Mornin’ Babe Café & Shoppe next door serving customers when a neighbouring business owner across the street ran in and yelled there was smoke belching out the back of the building beside her.

“As business owners we’re always worried about fires, after what happened years ago,” said Dyer, whose daughter Jenna runs the popular little café inside the Rustix wood gift shop formerly known as Tea Beards and two doors down from the post office..

Everyone ran out back, she said.

Including workers who have been renovating next door this winter on a pot business and this week were putting a wooden façade on the main street.

Contractor Bill Allison saw them running around the corner onto Bay Street into the alleyway.

“I knew something was wrong,” he said Saturday afternoon, while cleaning up the mess left behind.

“As a good community man” he ran to see if he could help.

A pile of debris from the winter’s work had caught fire and Allison said he found a half dozen people just standing around saying that they’d called the fire department.

The workers had fire extinguishers, but only one really worked.

Allison yelled: “Throw some snow on it”

And they did and it worked, suppressing the flames that licked up the Rustix wall “10 feet” threatening the building — and maybe even more of the downtown.

The fire department quickly arrived and made sure the burning embers were definitely out and wouldn’t spark up again.

Fears among everyone were that this could be another devastating blaze like three others that took out four buildings in the same business block not that many years ago.

Rose Dyer said the fire department was “very good,” making sure everyone was safe and checking to make sure there were no other fire threats or smoke problems.

She said they will try to determine the cause of the blaze.

Rustix owner Stanley Marshall was particularly worried, as the fire was just the other side of the wall to his workshop where he makes his amazing wood crafts.

“We were lucky,” he said, as he surveyed the charred remains of the wall today while Allison and Warren McLeod cleaned up some leftover pieces of pine, using a small John Deere tractor to also move snow and clear the laneway.

Warren McLeod piles snow and cleans up the laneway with a tractor as Bill Allison talks about the fire and close call and fire he helped put out yesterday behind Gravenhurst’s main street.
Bill Allison yelled “throw some snow on it” when he ran down the laneway and saw the fire licking up the wall “10 feet.”
Rustix owner Stanley Marshall and Mornin’ Babe barista Rose Dyer were in their shared shop when a business owner across the street ran in and yelled there’s a fire in the alley out back of the building next door burning the wall of their cafe and wood shop.

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