and he was only a couple of kilometres away when the call came in. Ruller said crews were dispatched at about 2:30 p.m. In an online posting, Vanderheiden said as the barns burned, "I gave up watching when I saw firefighters break down our door, kneel down and fight a blazing fire.' Catharines, who said he lost "thousands of dollars worth of automotive technician tools" in the fire. One of the fundraisers was started Tuesday night by Kyle Vanderheiden of St. As of Wednesday night they had raised more than $11,000. "We had a report that there may be a couple of barn cats that were in there, but beyond that we weren't in a position to do any searches based on the conditions," he said in an interview at the scene.Īt least four GoFundMe campaigns have been launched to help victims recover from the fire. He said two additional tankers were called in from the Thorold Fire Department to provide more water for firefighters, on top of NOTL's own pair of 3,000-gallon tankers. The rural area doesn't have fire hydrants, so with the size of the fire, the fire crews were "outmatched," Ruller said, but noted no one was injured. He estimated the damage total at $2.5 million and said fire crews helped save between $2.5 miliion and $4 million in property. The barns housed a variety of businesses, including auto repair, storage of high-end boats and some that were "building racecars," Ruller said. The three huge, 500-foot repurposed former barns at 1238 Townline Rd. were home to several businesses, including Reclaimed by Roots, a custom producer of live-edge wood products. The fire created a thick plume of dark smoke that could be seen from several kilometres away, across most of NOTL and firefighters worked through the night to bring it under control. Niagara-on-the-Lake’s crew of 60 firefighters used every fire apparatus the town has but were simply “outmatched” due to a lack of available water as they battled a massive blaze that engulfed an old chicken farm turned business facility Tuesday, fire chief Nick Ruller says.