When Nokar Hussein headed to work on Friday, April 7, he expected a slow, uneventful day. But as most Sackvillians are painfully aware, it wouldn’t turn out that way. April 7 was Good Friday, the day that a fire consumed the building that was home to Joey’s Pizza and Pasta on York Street.

Nokar and his brother’s family run Fener’s Place on Bridge Street. As he was on his way to work, he smelled something strange as he passed the Independent grocery story on Main but attributed it to a possible power issue, because he noticed an NB Power truck nearby.

When he went to get a coffee, Nokar noticed smoke on Bridge Street, and went to investigate. His search took him around the back of the Joey’s building, where he saw smoke billowing from the restaurant’s ventilation chimney, and flames appearing near the base of the kitchen exhaust.

At the same time, a young man came out of the building, and Nokar asked if he knew anyone in the building. He immediately went back inside to alert his friends, while Nokar called 911. Within minutes the Sackville Fire Department arrived to try to control the fire. That was around 9:30, when Nokar says the fire he observed was well underway.

“When I went there, it was a huge fire actually,” says Nokar.

Though he says he just did what anyone in the same situation would do, it’s hard to deny the fact that Nokar was in the right place at the right time to help alert the building’s residents.

A number of people were in the building; he recalls six or seven came out after he arrived.

“They didn’t know there was any fire,” says Nokar. “It was a windy day, they didn’t smell anything. But if you were on Bridge Street, you would smell smoke.”

Nokar learned at a young age not to ignore the smell of smoke. When he was visiting his uncle’s chicken farm as a child, he smelled what he thought was smoke but dismissed the idea out of hand.

“After one hour I [could] see all the farm, it’s on fire.” From then on, whenever he suspects something could be wrong, he investigates. “I have to make sure about it,” he says.

As a restaurant operator himself, and a loyal Joey’s customer, Nokar says he is personally mourning the loss of the decades-old restaurant.

“I know all who’s working there,” says Nokar. “I was very, very sad about Joey’s… It’s too much.”

Wind and age of building added challenges for firefighters

About 60 firefighters from Sackville, Point de Bute, Dorchester, Memramcook and Amherst worked on putting out the fire, says Sackville fire chief Craig Bowser. Due to the heavy smoke and flames on the scene when they arrived, the Sackville team immediately called in “mutual aid resources” from neighbouring departments. Bowser says the fire had travelled throughout the older building, which was challenging.

“The wind also blew very hard that day,” says Bowser, “driving the smoke down into the centre of town.”

Shortly after they arrived, Bowser called in a little extra help from a local Sackville business.

Brett Beale of Beale and Inch says he got the call about 10:15am that one of his company’s excavators would be needed to help with the firefighting effort. Beale says it’s not the first time his company has been called in to help fight a building fire in Sackville, and he and his team were ready to go when the fire department called, having already heard what was happening through social networks.

A Beale and Inch excavator tears down parts of the Joey’s Pizza building in an attempt to stop the fire from spreading. Image: JJ Stiles.

Bowser says the excavator helped keep the fire from spreading. “We had to take a portion of that building down, just stop the fire from transferring into the building that’s still standing,” says Bowser.

“There was heavy, heavy heat. And that would continue to transfer, and the wind was continuing to feed it.”

Owen Carter operated Beale and Inch’s 35-ton excavator under radio instructions from the firefighting team, and Beale says the smoke was so bad that at one point the team put an airpack in the operator’s cabin, just in case.

Sackville fire was not only hooked up to the town’s fire hydrants, but Memramcook tankers were trucking in water from Silver Lake to help douse the fire.

“The water tower and our water system did its job greatly as it’s supposed to do,” says Bowser. “But we also didn’t want to put in an incredible amount of demand on the system. So we tried to balance that out a bit by bringing some water in from the Silver Lake area.”

While the Joey’s Pizza and Pasta building is completely destroyed, the neighbouring 10-12 York is still standing, but in rough shape. Bowser says the building took smoke and water damage, and there were fire suppression activities inside the building. He says the New Brunswick fire marshal is continuing its investigation into the cause of the fire.

Listen to the CHMA story below: