Firefighters work to put out a fire on the roof of Chronicles Comics and Cafe in downtown Red Deer Tuesday afternoon.

By Sheldon Spackman

Downtown Fire

Investigators looking into cause of roof fire at downtown business

May 7, 2019 | 2:25 PM

Investigators are looking into the cause of a roof fire at a downtown Red Deer business over the noon hour Tuesday.

Fire Chief Ken McMullen says crews received the call of a structure fire at 12:20 p.m. and upon arrival found smoke coming from the roof of Chronicles Comics and Café at 4919 Ross Street.

“Crews did a very quick extinguishment of that fire,” says McMullen. “We’re checking for extensions at this point but we do believe we have the fire knocked down.”

McMullen says when it comes to roof fires, there are layers of construction to go through to make sure the fires don’t spread.

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“We did bring in the command vehicle today but that’s for no other reason than when we think we’re going to be at prolonged scenes, it’s just a really good tool to move our staff inside out of the elements,” he explains. “You just never know what the weather is going to do and it just gives us a good place to work, so when you do see the command vehicle down here, we’re just going to start to utilize that a little bit more when we have confirmed fires like this one.”

McMullen notes however it’s fortunate no one was hurt and there is no damage to neighbouring businesses.

“I believe it was occupied at the time of the fire,” he adds. “There’s always going to be a lesson every time there’s a cause of a fire but it’s too early to know what this one was in order to give a preventative message. We’ve got about 35 members on-scene right now.”

Tuesday’s fire resulted in traffic being blocked-off along Ross Street between 49 Avenue and 50 Avenue (Little Gaetz) with only pedestrian traffic getting through while crews remained on scene.