Large fire guts fish plant in eastern Newfoundland

O’DONNELL’S, N.L. – A fish plant in a small community in eastern Newfoundland has been gutted by a large fire, leaving the village without its core employer.
The local volunteer fire department was dispatched to Hickey and Son’s Fisheries Ltd. in O’Donnell’s on St. Mary’s Bay at around 1:15 a.m. on Friday.

By daylight, all that was left was a twisted heap of charred metal and smoldering ash, and fire Chief Tony Daley said the building was a “total write-off.”
RCMP are investigating.

Daley said the impact of the plant’s loss will be felt throughout the community of around 120 people.
“Everybody’ll feel it, right from the little grocery store to the gas stations to everybody else,” he said.
About 80 people were employed at the plant, from O’Donnell’s and neighbouring communities in the area.

Measuring at 20 metres by 300 metres, the plant stood out as the centrepiece in the village.
“It’s the only thing people have for employment there,” said Ann Marie Reardon, who is from the neighbouring town of St. Joseph’s.
“(The village) has the fish plant and it has the store. And now the fish plant is gone. Their livelihood is gone. It’s really, really terrible.”
Daley said some members of the volunteer fire department were also employed at the plant.

The fire did not damage any other structures.

The plant had been processing whelk and cod at the time.

The fire is the latest blaze to have destroyed similar plants in the province over the last couple of years.

In 2016, the Norman’s Cove-Long Cove fish plant burned to the ground, just months after a similar fire at the Quinlan Brother’s plant in Bay de Verde.

Quinlan has since rebuilt, but the Quin-Sea plant in Norman’s Cove did not reopen. The operation was moved to Southern Harbour.