Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Nanaimo Fire Acme Building - Mar. 30/16









Downtown Nanaimo building engulfed

The building at the corner of Commercial St. and Terminal Ave. known by some as the 'Acme' building for the name of a restaurant most recently at the address was the scene of an early evening fire.

The above photos were taken between 7:00 - 8:00 pm and show how quickly the fire progressed and filled the air with acrid, choking smoke. I finally left at about 8:00 pm when the air quality became simply too poor. 

When I first arrived there was smoke billowing out under the eves on the building housing the Framing shop. Before long it had broken through the roof resulting in the snorkel truck being pressed into service to control the blaze.

That corner looks like one building but is actually three different civic addresses with a combined assessed value of $1,272,000.00. It has been the long time home of a framing shop and more recently Whispers Adult Store. The Acme Food company has been closed, and that space vacant for over a year I believe. It is my understanding that the building also was home to many artisans and most recently the Nanaimo Arts Council had moved into this building.



allvoices

2 comments:

  1. The Jean Burns Building now known as The Acme Building was a landmark site in my opinion. Nanaimo has lost another piece of it's history & personality. Jean Burns owned this site & operated a mercantile store within. She was one of Nanaimo's pioneer people I believe. She was living when I moved to Nanaimo in the early 1960's.She was a goodly age then & I later helped care for her at N.R.G.H.

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  2. wonder when the old a&b sound building will burn down to, what was the last fire in downtown, the train station? lots of stuff sure burns down in downtown, very suspicious indeed
    thanks for the photos, world class

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