Quick action prevents “disastrous” situation during gas station fire

Owner of the Mount Joy service station, Leslie Salmon, highly commended firefighters and his staff for their efforts in containing a fire at the station over the weekend. Yesterday, Salmon expressed his thankfulness to firefighters for their quick response and their ability to contain the flames from spreading to fuel lines, something which he noted could have been “disastrous”.
“At about 2 a.m. on Saturday I received a call from my supervisor. On arrival I saw three to four fire trucks and they were fighting a fire which they were able to keep confined to the office area,” he told Observer media. “I heard their response was within 10 minutes and I think that’s what saved the station. So, I would like to commend the firefighters in their excellent work on being here so quickly and being able to confine the fire so it didn’t get to the fuel lines which would have been disastrous.”
Although an investigation into the matter is ongoing, Salmon – a self-acknowledged layman – believes it was caused by an overheated UPS battery. “As a layman, I suspect it’s maybe something electrical, maybe an overheated UPS battery, but when the fire officials finish their investigation I will know for sure. But when I came in and I looked to see where was more intense that’s the only thing I could think of.” Salmon, who is also the owner of Billy’s Food Mart Friar’s Hill Road and Food Brokerage Services on Newgate Street, could not put an exact figure to the damage caused by the fire, but was however upbeat on plans to continue daily operations.
“We lost basically everything inside the superette itself, but I am very grateful to God, because it could have been a lot worse. What we are focusing on now is servicing our customers, so we’re transferring to another part of the building where we can operate on a downscale manner so that we can keep the staff employed and keep our customers satisfied.
Those are two more important things. “I want to thank everyone, mainly the employees and my supervisor, Elise Jackson, for their efforts to get some sort of normalcy up to this point,” Salmon said.