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Cranbrook planer mill goes up in flames

The decommissioned Tembec planer mill burned in an overnight blaze started Nov. 1.
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A fire destroyed the Tembec planer mill in Cranbrook on the evening of November 1.

The Tembec planer mill burned down on November 1 in a blaze that had firefighters working into Nov. 2.

“The call came in to the fire department at about 9:55 p.m. that a large portion of the Tembec Planer Mill just off Theatre Road had caught fire,” said City of Cranbrook spokesperson Chris Zettel. “The fire department responded with 16 personnel and they are in a defensive circle, trying to prevent the fire from spreading.”

As of this report, the fire may have also engulfed numerous other structures adjacent to the main mill building, but it did not spread beyond the mill property. No injuries have been reported.

The sawmill was closed in 2007 and the planer mill shut down in 2010. It was May of this year that the kilns at the site were also closed.

Before the end of this year, testing was supposed to begin in regards to clean-up of any contamination that may have occured during the site’s tenure. The Ministry of Forests had given Tembec $100,000 to do the remediation work.

Currently, no cause has been determined and no damage estimate is available.

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