{"id":148719,"date":"2023-04-14T21:26:17","date_gmt":"2023-04-15T01:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=148719"},"modified":"2023-04-17T16:59:13","modified_gmt":"2023-04-17T20:59:13","slug":"sight-of-smoke-led-nokar-hussein-to-discover-good-friday-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/sight-of-smoke-led-nokar-hussein-to-discover-good-friday-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Sight of smoke led local to discover Good Friday fire"},"content":{"rendered":"
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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\u2019t turn out that way. April 7 was Good Friday, the day that a fire consumed the building that was home to Joey\u2019s Pizza and Pasta on York Street.<\/p>\n

Nokar and his brother\u2019s family run Fener\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s building, where he saw smoke billowing from the restaurant\u2019s ventilation chimney, and flames appearing near the base of the kitchen exhaust.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I went there, it was a huge fire actually,\u201d says Nokar.<\/p>\n

Though he says he just did what anyone in the same situation would do, it\u2019s hard to deny the fact that Nokar was in the right place at the right time to help alert the building\u2019s residents.<\/p>\n

A number of people were in the building; he recalls six or seven came out after he arrived.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t know there was any fire,\u201d says Nokar. \u201cIt was a windy day, they didn\u2019t smell anything. But if you were on Bridge Street, you would smell smoke.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nokar learned at a young age not to ignore the smell of smoke. When he was visiting his uncle\u2019s chicken farm as a child, he smelled what he thought was smoke but dismissed the idea out of hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter one hour I [could] see all the farm, it\u2019s on fire.\u201d From then on, whenever he suspects something could be wrong, he investigates. \u201cI have to make sure about it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

As a restaurant operator himself, and a loyal Joey\u2019s customer, Nokar says he is personally mourning the loss of the decades-old restaurant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know all who\u2019s working there,\u201d says Nokar. \u201cI was very, very sad about Joey\u2019s\u2026 It\u2019s too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wind and age of building added challenges for firefighters<\/h2>\n

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 \u201cmutual aid resources\u201d from neighbouring departments. Bowser says the fire had travelled throughout the older building, which was challenging.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe wind also blew very hard that day,\u201d says Bowser, \u201cdriving the smoke down into the centre of town.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after they arrived, Bowser called in a little extra help from a local Sackville business.<\/p>\n

Brett Beale of Beale and Inch says he got the call about 10:15am that one of his company\u2019s excavators would be needed to help with the firefighting effort. Beale says it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\"Scene

A Beale and Inch excavator tears down parts of the Joey\u2019s Pizza building in an attempt to stop the fire from spreading. Image: JJ Stiles.<\/p><\/div><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Bowser says the excavator helped keep the fire from spreading. \u201cWe had to take a portion of that building down, just stop the fire from transferring into the building that\u2019s still standing,\u201d says Bowser.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was heavy, heavy heat. And that would continue to transfer, and the wind was continuing to feed it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Owen Carter operated Beale and Inch\u2019s 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\u2019s cabin, just in case.<\/p>\n

Sackville fire was not only hooked up to the town\u2019s fire hydrants, but Memramcook tankers were trucking in water from Silver Lake to help douse the fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe water tower and our water system did its job greatly as it\u2019s supposed to do,\u201d says Bowser. \u201cBut we also didn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Joey\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Listen to the CHMA story below:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019t turn out that way. April 7 was Good Friday, the day that a fire consumed the building that was home to Joey\u2019s Pizza and Pasta on York Street. Nokar and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":148721,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[8578,4844,25139,25138,8248,3619],"radio":[227],"origine":[274,275,277],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148719"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148719"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":148891,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148719\/revisions\/148891"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148719"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=148719"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=148719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}