Amherst firefighters were on the scene Sunday extinguishing hot spots and cleaning up from a major blaze Saturday night which destroyed part of a century-old building in downtown Amherst.
The building housed several businesses over the years and currently was home to a storage company and a fabrics business.
Several clients who rented storage space in the building lost all their belongings.
No one was injured.
Over a hundred firefighters from seven different departments battled the fire throughout the night after a call came in around 10:30pm.
Amherst firefighters received aid from the Sackville, Springhill, Leicester, Pointe du Bute, River Hebert and Trumanville fire departments.
Amherst Fire Chief Greg Jones says when they arrived on the scene, smoke was starting to come out of the eaves of the structure and from the doors on the lower level.
After sending a crew in, Jones determined the fire had progressed to a point that firefighters would take a defensive tack.
Three aerial trucks, from Amherst, Springhill and Sackville, N.B., poured thousands of litres of water on the structure from three different sides of the building. Crews manning the 10 other pieces of apparatus also poured water into the structure from all sides of the building.
At one point, flames shot 20 metres into the air from the burning structure.
The cause of the blaze hasn’t been determined.
