Firefighters responded to a dryer fire at the pool facility Sunday. (Submitted photo/Rob Feist, and Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

No injuries reported

Pool facility temporarily closed following dryer fire Sunday

Nov 28, 2022 | 4:23 AM

UPDATE: The City has now advised the Battlefords CO-OP Aquatic Centre is expected to re-open at 1 p.m. on Tuesday instead, as the clean up is taking a little longer than originally anticipated.

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UPDATE: The city has advised the Battlefords CO-OP Aquatic Centre will now re-open at 9 a.m. on Tuesday. The 6 a.m. early bird swim tomorrow morning has been cancelled. Otherwise, the programming will resume as previously scheduled.

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People were evacuated from the pool facility in North Battleford Sunday evening when a commercial clothes dryer machine in the building caught fire.

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North Battleford Fire Department responded to the fire shortly after the report came in between 7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m. at the Battlefords CO-OP Aquatic Centre.

Fire Chief Lindsay Holm said there were no injuries reported. Everyone was immediately evacuated from the facility at the time.

The dryer was located in a separate room in the building that has a steel firewall.

“It’s totally isolated, so it’s made up of non combustible walls all the way around. Between that and the sprinkler head [going off], everything from a fire protection standpoint stood up very well,” Holm said.

When firefighters arrived at the location, they quickly contained the fire and put it out.

Smoke and some water from the sprinkler ended up in the lobby area.

“Now there is just a clean-up effort because there was a sizable amount of water that released due to the sprinkler activation,” Holm said. “There was a little bit of smoke damage but we were able to contain most of that as well. Thankfully, the sprinkler-head did exactly what it was supposed to do and it activated quickly, and it was able to contain the fire to the room of origin.”

He said there is some smoke in the air still, but nothing that should cause a notable issue.

“It’s just going to be a major clean-up effort to try to get the offices and the lobby area cleaned up,” Holm said.

He said everyone acted appropriately when the fire occurred.

Holm thanked City of North Battleford director of operations Stewart Schafer and parks and recreation dept. director Cheryl DeNeire who dispatched city crews to deal with the clean-up effort right away once the fire was put out.

He said the fire was mainly contained to the dryer unit itself, so it did not spread to any of the contents in that room.

“The fire was easily controlled by our on-duty crew, and we were able to get the water to stop flowing with the assistance of my crews in the maintenance department,” Holm said.

The cause of the fire is still being determined.

Pool temporarily closed

The City of North Battleford city manager Randy Patrick said the pool facility will be closed Nov. 28 for the necessary repairs for the cleanup.

The city hopes to re-open the pool Tuesday but will let the public know first.

All swimming lessons will be cancelled on Monday during the closure.

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow