A major fire broke out on the site of the Serres Toundra in Saint-Félicien, Lac-Saint-Jean on Wednesday afternoon.
• Also read: Landslide in Pierreville: Victims await solutions
• Also read: Fromagerie Boivin: The abyss of the fjord could reappear
Firefighters received an initial call at around 3:56 p.m. about a fire said to have broken out at a substation in the cucumber manufacturing company’s third greenhouse.
A little over an hour later, the flames were brought under control, not without causing damage to the greenhouse’s coating and structure. The severity of the damage has yet to be assessed.
heavy losses
“There are very big losses. For us it is a power outage. The damage is limited to the facade. The structure suffered, but it is not weakened and there is no risk of collapse,” said Viateur Aubé, chief of the Saint-Félicien fire brigade.
About 35 firefighters were dispatched to fight the fire, and reinforcements were called from the neighboring municipality of Normandin.
A general alarm was sounded, but no workers were injured. The operation ended around 6 p.m.
The hypothesis retained would be that of a transformer which had blown. The crime seems impossible.
“We think there is a half [de la serre] what is intact. Currently there are people rolling it. We’ll see tonight how it was,” Serres Toundra CEO Eric Dubé said on Wednesday.
“We don’t think we can fix this winter. We have to wait until spring. […] This greenhouse may not be repaired before August, September. It postpones all our projects by a year,” continued Mr. Dubé.
The amount of damage was not specified.
Big investment
The fire broke out hours before a major announcement by the cucumber production company.
An investment of $500 million to fund seven new expansion stages was to be announced on Wednesday.
According to TVA Nouvelles, the Serres Toundra has been the target of complaints from citizens about light pollution.
A research team also visited the company’s site last September to assess the level of light pollution.
Founded in 2016, Serres Toundra is the largest cucumber producer in Quebec.
The company employs a hundred people.
-With Jean-Francois Racine
Do you have any information about this story that you would like to share with us?
Do you have a scoop that might be of interest to our readers?