From the road, one would never guess that the production greenhouses of Les Serres Neville were nearly destroyed by fire just over two weeks ago. Even stepping inside, a visitor might miss the newly rebuilt back wall and darkened, distorted edge to the adjacent plastic sheeting, distracted by a sea of green. Stepping out the back door of the nursery, however, is like stepping into another world. “It was five o’clock in the morning when Cathy heard a boom,” recalled Chuck Neville, bending underneath one of the blackened pipes that used to run hot water out of his boiler and out to the nearby greenhouses. “She looked out, everything was already blazing, and I said to myself, well, it’s finished, you know?” The space that once housed the boiler and furnace is now a blackened landscape of twisted metal, scorched earth, and mounds of ash and mixed debris. Neville explained that although the boiler room had been a metal structure, the heating system was fuelled by sawdust, which offered a cost-effective way of keeping the young plants warm in the winter and early spring. Although not sure of the cause, the garden centre owner guessed that accumulated sawdust on the insulation near the sawdust hopper was ignited sometime in the early hours of April 15, leading to the blaze he and his wife saw out the window. See full story in the Wednesday, May 2nd edition of The Record.
Les Serres Neville rising from the ashes
By Gordon Lambie
