A preliminary damage estimate has been set at over $1 million following a fire that impacted three buildings in downtown Forest Wednesday evening.
Lambton Shores Fire Chief Lawrence Swift believes the cause was electrical in nature, but said they are still investigating.
"We have brought in a structural engineer to assist with determining the future of the structure," said Swift. "We've engaged a drone to provide some overhead coverage of the burnt out building and the surrounding buildings, just to help with the engineering assessment and the overall approach to what to be done next."
Swift said the roof of the century-old building on King Street partially collapsed into the second floor.
"The main floor and second floor, floor, is in place and is structurally sound in that you could, theoretically, walk on it. But we are looking for a structural engineer to come in and then determine and give us some insight with regards to if we should be entering the building, or not."
He said the building had multiple uses.
"It had businesses on the street level and residential [above]. In this particular case, only one of the two businesses were occupied and above it were residential occupancies that were also not occupied as renovations were being done in them."
One of the neighbouring buildings, formerly used by the Royal Bank, was three stories and vacant, while the other was occupied by a business that used its second floor for storage.
"The damage estimate that we're working with right now is just a preliminary one and we set it at about $1 million dollars, and that includes the two adjacent buildings," Swift said. "While there was no fire damage done to those buildings, we were able to contain it to the building of the origin, there was substantial water damage to the buildings on either site, so that's inflating the number slightly."
None of the buildings were occupied at the time, and no injuries were reported.
"The call came from a passerby, seeing smoke coming out of a window."
Crews were initially called to the structure fire around 5:30 p.m., but backup was called around 9 p.m. when a big, unexpected, concealed fire was exposed behind a wall during their overhaul.
"Unbeknown to us, was a complete area of the building that was obviously on fire, oxygen deficient, and superheated. When we breached it, it caused air to get in and caused it to flame up and we had a rapid expansion of smoke and a rapid expansion of fire. There was all this energy in this area that was pent up because it didn't have enough oxygen."
Swift said four of the five fire stations in Lambton Shores responded to the call and crews from Petrolia and South Huron assisted with ladder trucks.