Park Rapids and Nevis firefighters battled a fire Monday in the attic of a cottage at 3M’s Wonewok Conference Center in Hubbard County.
According to Assistant Fire Chief Ben Cumber with the Park Rapids Fire Department, the call was paged out at approximately 1 p.m. Arriving personnel found smoke coming out of the roof area. Upon investigating inside the cottage, they found no smoke or fire on the main level, but they found heavy fire in the attic.
Cumber said firefighters used approximately 3,000 gallons of water to put out the fire, then spent an hour and a half to two hours overhauling the scene, looking for hot spots and the potential for reignition.
Unofficially, Cumber said the fire was suspected to originate from a light fixture recessed into the ceiling, but the cause remains under investigation.
Cumber estimated the damage to range from severe to a total loss. “The whole attic is just trashed,” he said.
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Those responding to the call included approximately 15 personnel from Park Rapids and 8-10 Nevis personnel, Cumber said, with seven or eight apparatus total.
“I think it went really well,” he said about the fire departments’ response. “It’s always good to work with neighboring departments. We get along good with Nevis. We just took turns and looked through and sifted through, and a lot of guys breathed two air bottles full of air, trying to help mop up.”
There were no injuries in the fire, Cumber said.
