Newpac Fibre mill remains closed following Feb. 5 fire
Newpac Fibre in Garland Prairie remains closed after suspected arson closed the mill Feb. 5. “The mill is temporarily shut down right now,” said Mark Chamberlain, manager at the mill. “We have an operator and one lever left. We’re just working on cleaning up the yard, making sure that it looks presentable. Besides that there’s only about four people working right now,” he said.
The fire, which took place around 5:45 a.m. in early February, was investigated as arson by the Williams Police Department. According to Chamberlain, a nearby resident saw the flames and notified a mill employee, who lives onsite. Williams Volunteer Fire Department was dispatched and used around
20,000 gallons of water to fight the blaze. The mill used heavy equipment to move logs that had not been damaged, cutting the fire off from other log piles and helping extinguish the blaze.
According to Chamberlain and mill owner, Rohit Tripathi, the mill lost around 10 truckloads of logs worth thousands of dollars in revenue.
Because of the amount of water used to extinguish the blaze, Williams Police Chief Herman Nixon said they were unable to recover evidence to determine the cause of the fire. However, the case was investigated as arson because of the circumstances, and a potential witness was sought by the police department.
Currently, no witnesses have come forward.
“Our leads did not pan out,” Nixon said.
He said it remains an open investigation but at this time there have been no further developments to the case.
Chamberlain said he was uncertain when the mill would begin operations again and said he does not know if the owner plans to re-open.
“It’s not any (time) in the immediate future,” he said.
Tripathi did not immediately respond to phone calls about the status of the mill.
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