A large fire broke out Wednesday afternoon at a school under construction in a booming Manitoba community.
Winkler’s Fire Chief Richard Paetzold told CTV news the call came in around 2:40 p.m. for a fire on the roof of Pine Ridge Elementary.
A video sent to CTV News showed a large plume of smoke coming from the building in Winkler, Man. while firefighters attacked the fire from overhead in a ladder bucket. Another video showed flames coming out of the corner of the building.
The decision to build the school was made to deal with overcrowding at four other elementary schools in the area, said the superintendent for the Garden Valley School Division.
Construction began in March of 2018 and the school was expected to be complete by September.
The superintendent said only construction workers would have been on site at the time of the fire.
Paetzold said the fire was related to roofing work being done by construction crews on site, but said all employees were able to escape before firefighters arrived.
Along with damage to the roof Paetzold said there was some water and smoke damage on site, but an exact damage estimate isn’t known at this time.
The site is run by WBS construction, a Winkler-based company. A general manager told CTV News about 20 to 30 people would have been working on the site.
-With files from CTV's Gabrielle Marchand
