‘Horrific’

The owner of a bait shop says he’s horrified that someone from his Westfort community could be responsible for burning down his backyard garage.

Thunder Bay Fire and Rescue firefighters woke 64-year-old Joseph Przy just after 11:30 p.m. on Friday. Przy, who owns and operates a bait shop inside his home on Brown Street, watched as firefighters doused a fire inside his backyard garage.

The five pumpers snuffed the fire out before it could spread, but when the smoke cleared there was nothing left of the garage.

Przy said he didn’t hear or see anything when he went to bed. There wasn’t much destroyed that was worth a lot of money but there was plenty with sentimental value.

"You can see an old wood stove, that’s from my grandparents, that’s very valuable stuff to me," Przy said as his voice shook. "This area is getting so bad. It’s horrific. I’m not shocked, I’m befuddled because I never heard anyone. I’ve lived in Westfort for most of my life, but this is not what this community is about."

Przy opened his shop four years ago and said nothing like this has ever happened to him before. He said it would cost him thousands to clean up the mess, and he now has plans to build a fence with razor wire in hopes it will prevent something like this from happening again.

Thunder Bay Fire platoon chief Val Lafontaine said the fire crew from Brown Street station had gone out to another call and on their way back heard a commotion down the street and decided to investigate. They discovered smoke coming from a garage and quickly went to work.

"Garage’s are always a hazardous fire for us because of the contents within," Lafontaine said. "People store gasoline, propane and so on. There were no injuries but there was some damage to a motor home parked nearby with some melting to the tail lights."

He added that he believed the fire inspector would conduct an investigation into the cause of the fire.