Hitch House

[cheaptackle]

Hitch House on Hwy 11 South is burning down - Hwy closed at line 3. Picture in the Packet & Times (sorry don't know how to link yet)

 

Michael

[misfish]

Ya,I went to Rama this afternoon,it was bellowing out the one bay door,and the show room was full of smoke. On my return,I could see the smoke from Oro line 10. Huge black clouds. A person from the hitch house was on rock 95 and said no one was hurt,but the building is preTty much done.

 

Long time bussiness in the ally.

 

 

Edited November 27, 2012 by Misfish

[cheaptackle]

Bigger Story & more pictures on the Barrie Examiner Site. Glad all got out - What a Mess!

Looks like you posted in the status at the exact same time I posted here!

[misfish]

When I drove by,there was one fire truck there and an ambulance. Im sure by the time it got full blown,Barrie was called in to assit. No way the local volunteer stations could deal with that.

[cheaptackle]

Looking at the pictures in the Examiner it'd be a fair guess it's going to be a near total loss except for any units that may have been parked far enough away from the buildings. Says Barrie crews and others were on scene. Story was only posted at 4:38.

 

Michael

[misfish]

This is a shot from Shanty bay road at line 8.

 

That was from cell. WOW

Edited November 27, 2012 by Misfish

[misfish]

http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com/2012/11/27/numerous-fire-crews-called-out-to-battle-blaze-at-business-north-of-barrie

[NAW]

A friend of a friend works there. Said an RV in their showroom caught fire.

 

Doesn't take long for it to swallow the entire building. Scary stuff. Glad that know body was hurt.

[cheaptackle]

It will be interesting to hear how the fire started in a brand new rv in the showroom. Just thinking of the number of possibilities from wiring to fuel management is mind boggling! What an incredible loss for the business and employees.

 

Michael

[kickingfrog]

I can't imagine what it would be like to see your business, or place of work, burn to the ground.

[irishfield]

Probably not the way Dave wanted it to end after 40 years.

[misfish]

Probably not the way Dave wanted it to end after 40 years.

 

 

Ya

 

I wonder what the new guy on the north bound lanes is thinking Wayne. Hope he,s not sulivating.

[mr blizzard]

Sorry to hear the news. We dealt with them years ago. Fine bunch of people. Tough blow at any time but especially before Christmas. Main thing is all are safe.

 

They will get back on their feet and be bigger and better than ever.

[kickingfrog]

http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com/2012/11/28/foul-play-ruled-out-in-hitch-house-blaze-officials

 

Foul play ruled out in Hitch House blaze: Officials

 

By Lance Holdforth, Special to QMI Agency

Wednesday, November 28, 2012 5:06:42 EST PM

 

ORO-MEDONTE TWP. — When fire ripped through the Hitch House on Highway 11, Tuesday afternoon, staff did everything they could to save the building before it was engulfed in flames.

 

Office of the Fire Marshal investigators were on scene Wednesday morning piecing together the events leading up to the blaze in hopes of determining what caused approximately $2 million in damages.

 

The OFM's Mike Ross interviewed witnesses and staff who tried to extinguish the fire after it was located in a recreational vehicle (RV) in the building's main showroom around 2:30 p.m.

 

A cause of the fire has yet to be determined, but investigators have ruled out foul play.

 

"Personally, I think (staff) did everything right. At the time it started, it wasn't a raging inferno, so they acted with fire extinguishers and tried to suppress it because at that stage of the fire it wasn't an advanced fire," he said.

 

"When you talk about fires in an advanced stage, it's incredibly hard to put it out with an extinguisher," Ross added. "If it was a very advanced fire (at the time) they never would have been able to survive anything like that."

 

The next step, he said, is to determine the cause of the blaze and what resulted in it spreading so fast.

 

"We have to interview all the people who witnessed the fire and evaluate the unit itself through a process of looking at and seeing what's there," he said. "You can tell it was an advanced fire just by the damage it caused."

 

Salesman Mike Barton was sitting in a fellow employee's office when he heard a faint smoke alarm going off in the showroom.

 

When staff followed the sound to an RV in the main room, they noticed fire had broken out and filled the motor home with black smoke.

 

"I turned around and the Travel Supreme was facing me and the inside was full of black smoke," Barton said. "In the rest of the showroom there was nothing. You couldn't smell it, but the whole thing was full and all the windows were shut."

 

Within moments, staff entered the motor home with extinguishers, but once they thought it was under control, the fire flared up and began consuming the RV.

 

"We grabbed fire extinguishers and we thought we had it out. The smoke started to clear and we thought it wasn't that bad and then it started to come back again," Barton said. "The smoke got so bad that we couldn't stay in there anymore.

 

"At that point (staff) were all evacuated, so there wasn't an issue with getting everybody out."

 

Evacuation orders were announced over a loud speaker and alerted staff to exit the building and meet a designated spot outlined in company's fire safety plan, which is credited for saving the lives of more than 35 people.

 

A black plume of smoke rose from the 35,000-square-foot facility in Gasoline Alley as employees exited the building with nothing else to do but watch the business go up in flames, Barton said.

 

"All the staff was out of the building where they were supposed to be. Everybody knows where they have to be because we have safety meetings all the time," he said. "To be quite honest, when Ashley paged for all the people to leave the building I thought it was premature at first, but man was that the right call."

 

The Hitch House, which has been around for more than 30 years, sells recreational vehicles, such as motor homes and campers, and is a well-known sight along Highway 11.

 

The business dates back to 1969, when David McKee resigned from the Canadian Forces and rented a Fina gas station on Highway 11.

 

McKee expanded his property and facilities between 1973 and 1980, purchasing almost nine acres in 1973 adjacent to the Fina station and built his first facility. Two more acres were bought in 1978, and by 1980 the building was enclosed and insulated as a year-round facility. A 7,500-sq.-ft. showroom was added in 1997.

 

The smoke alarm was a key element in saving the lives of staff and ensuring everyone got out of the building uninjured.

 

"There was a smoke alarm in the RV itself and that's what alerted them to the fire and that goes back to whether it's an RV or a residential house, the importance of smoke alarms is key," Ross said. "If that wasn't in place, who knows what they might have been up against. In this case it was key in those people not being injured."

 

The smell of burnt plastic filled the air surrounding the rubble and bent steel beams as Ross described how the fire may have spread through the building.

 

More than 50 firefighters from Barrie as well as Springwater, Tay and Severn townships attended under local mutual-aid agreements and had to pump water from a stream on Line 1 North.

 

"It was obviously in excess of a couple hundred degrees or even a thousand degrees for sure, based on fuel load, and once the windows decided to fail, then obviously that's what turns a smaller fire into a larger fire and more intense," Ross said. "When you talk about a secondary element, you have these RVs that contain upholstered furniture and the combustible nature of the stuff inside itself and are a substantial fuel load to a fire."

 

According to provincial police, emergency crews were on hand until around 1 a.m., Wednesday.

 

Eight RVs in the showroom were destroyed and portions of the building collapsed.

 

Ross said there was still the issue of possible flare-ups, too.

 

"When you're talking about gas or propane, obviously those things are very volatile and when things start getting more enhanced and developed you get a bigger fire," he said. "With the type of building construction where you have tar and gravel, that holds the heat in, so they're going to have to get that out."

 

The OFM continues to investigate.

 

[email protected]

[davey buoy]

Just announced ASAP they will get back to work using the remaining buildings on the property. Good news for sure!!!!

[kickingfrog]

News says they opened today for business.

[kickingfrog]

http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com/2013/07/12/hitch-house-rebuild-underway-2

Hitch House rebuild underway

 

ORO-MEDONTE TWP. — The Hitch House’s founder, Dave McKee, is doing exactly what he said he would do just hours after a multimillion-dollar fire completely destroyed his main building Nov. 27, 2012.

“We are going to come out of this bigger, better and stronger,” McKee said the day after the fire.

“We have a great staff, we are going to get a first-class builder, a first-class architect to design this and I have 44 years in this business. When we come back, look out,” McKee said.

No one was injured during the fire as the company followed a fire-safety plan where everyone exited and moved to a safe location early on.

None of the 40 employees were laid off. In fact, The Hitch House now has 43 employees.

“It never entered our mind that we would do anything but rebuild,” said co-owner Tom Stoate. “We reopened on the Saturday after the fire, working out of the separate service facility.

“In the days following the fire, Dave didn’t waste any time getting started. He worked with an interior designer to put together a layout,” he said.

Owners brought in six Atco trailers to be used for everything from sales to storage to bathrooms.

During the winter, the owners built a two-bay garage building, knowing it would be quicker to build than the main building. It is being used by Travel-Rite Rentals. The private business ran out of The Hitch House building and will lease office space in the new building.

In May, ground was broken for a new 33,000-square-foot building to replace the old 25,000-square-foot building.

It is expected to be complete in late November, a year from the date of the fire.

“It will be built better, stronger, safer and more energy efficient,” said Stoate. “The workflow will be more efficient for the people and the vehicles.”

The investigation into the fire by the Ontario Fire Marshal’s office and insurance investigators showed there was not much that the business owners could have changed or done differently, Stoate said.

The exact cause of the fire, which started in a used RV in the showroom, was not pinpointed, but an electrical malfunction is suspected. Foul play was ruled out early. A smoke alarm in the RV alerted staff to the crisis.

“What we learned is we needed more bay doors to access the showroom,” Stoate said.

The 1973 structure had only one door. The new building will have three doors.

“If we had three bay doors, we would have been able to evacuate the rest of the units more quickly. We extracted one out of the showroom and seven were lost,” he said.

At the time of the fire, staff were told to evacuate and a core group of five tried to contain the fire and minimize loss before the Oro-Medonte Fire Department ordered them out of the building when they arrived.

Throughout the entire process, Stoate said customers stuck with them.

“We’ve had tremendous support from our customers. There was a lot of compassion for what we were going through,” Stoate said.

For the rebuilding, McKee said the Township of Oro-Medonte has been co-operative. Stoate agreed. “The Township of Oro-Medonte really worked hard for us. It was an efficient operation. It was very, very nice,” he said. The new building will offer many upgrades from the old building, but the overall layout will remain the same.

The front section will be a larger showroom with three bay doors. The reception entrance as well as the sales office, parts and accessories and rental counter will be accessible from the side of the building. All the parts will be in one building that will save time for staff going to a second building looking for items.

The back of the building will include six service bays. Each bay will be 50 feet long and will be structured back to back so “you can easily go in one bay and out the other,” Stoate said. As RVs are a lot larger today than they were 40 years ago, the new doors will be 14 by 14 and the aisles between the bays are a full 10 feet wide. “It’s a more efficient set up,” he said.

Electrical panels, compressors and pressure washers will be contained, so the service area will be much quieter.

McKee is heavily involved in the construction project. Don Eagle, of Eagles Construction in Barrie, is the project manager and Garritts Engineering of Barrie is the architectural firm hired.

McKee started the business in 1969 when he purchased a Fina gas station on Highway 11. He expanded the property and built the first facility in 1973. He expanded property holdings and building additions in 1978, 1980 and 1997.