Fire guts Bedford eatery in old Lobster Ranch building
Posted Feb 7, 2012 05:22:18 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Traffic is now moving normally on the Bedford Highway after a fire that reduced the former Lobster Ranch building to a smoking shell.
The building, now home to Tu Do restaurant and Persepolis Food Market, caught fire early this morning and has sustained major damage.
Halifax Regional Fire Services Platoon Chief Gary McCurdy tells News 95.7 the building was fully engulfed when firefighters arrived on scene around 1:30, with flames shooting through the roof.
He says he doesn’t know how long it had been burning when crews arrived, but says they had a difficult time knocking it down.
“The heavy volume of fire on the roof, and we had a lot of equipment on the roof that made it impossible for us to do an aggressive interior attack,” he said. “We couldn’t get inside without fear of collapse from all the equipment on the roof. At the same time, we couldn’t put anybody on the roof to fight it from there as well.”
McCurdy says the flames were controlled around 4 a.m., and firefighters spent another couple of hours checking for hot spots.
The restaurant sustained most of the damage, which includes a collapsed roof. A firewall protected Persepolis from serious harm.
The owner of Persepolis spoke briefly to News 95.7, saying only that the business was his “baby.”
Fire investigators are now combing through the wreckage to try and determine a cause.
