Brett Thoms
Shawville January 6, 2022
A fire damaged the Autobus La Salle Garage on Friday night.
While it’s too soon to tell the extent of the damage, at least one school bus was damaged beyond repair, according to Shawville-Clarendon Fire Department (SCFD) Fire Chief Lee Laframboise.
“One bus was burning pretty bad. One wall and all the ceiling was pretty much on fire when we got there,” Laframboise said.
The fire also damaged three of the four bus bays and left the other bay and office with smoke damage.
No one was injured in the fire. The cause of the blaze is still under investigation.
A motorist driving by the West St. building reported the fire to the SCFD at 8:02 p.m, but the fire had already been going for some time before that, according to Laframboise. He added no one was in the building.
A factor that hindered firefighting efforts at the garage was the delay in Hydro Quebec arriving on the scene to cut the power to the building, according to Laframboise.
“I called for hydro right away. It took forever for them to get there and I had to get the men to stop working because there were a lot of shorts going on with the hydro wires. [Electricity] and water don’t mix too good,” Laframboise said.
He went on to say that the Hydro Quebec truck that did arrive had to come all the way from Maniwaki.
The SCFD had about 25 firefighters on the scene with Bristol FD also arriving to be on stand-by with more water if they were needed.
As of now both Pontiac High School and Dr. S.E. McDowell Elementary School report that there will be no interruption in school bus service.
La Salle is using R.M. Lang Farms’ garage for the time being.
