Emergency crews work at the scene of a fire at the Royal Cape Breton Yacht Club in Sydney on Friday. (THE CANADIAN PRESS)
A 34-year-old Sydney man has been charged with arson in relation to the Friday fire that destroyed the Cape Breton Yacht Club in Sydney.
Derek Joseph Harris will appear in provincial court in Sydney on Monday to face charges of arson and breach of probation.
Fire crews were called to the century-old building on the Sydney waterfront just after 1:30 p.m. Friday and found the structure engulfed in flames.
Cape Breton Regional Police also responded to the fire that was quickly labelled as suspicious.
“We’re not even a minute away and we got there extremely quick,” said Charlie Long, platoon chief for the Cape Breton Regional Municipality Fire Service, before charges were laid this morning. “There was an amazing amount of fire right off the bat and I ordered nobody in right off the bat because it was too dangerous.”
Long said it’s unusual that the building would have been consumed by flames so quickly, but added that the fire could have been burning for a while before it was detected and reported.
Crews levelled the building using an excavator because the site was so unstable, Long said.
“Nothing’s left standing.”
The building was vacant at the time of the fire, but its windows and doors were not boarded up, as previously reported, Long said.
The Enterprise Cape Breton Corporation, a Crown agency, bought the building earlier this year for $280,000 and initially said it planned to demolish it.
An engineering report written for the club in May 2011 estimated the building needed more than $2.5 million in repairs, but a second report released in March for conservation and heritage groups it could be preserved for an immediate outlay of between $210,000 and $345,000.
ECBC said it didn’t consider the club a heritage building and wouldn’t spend any money to save it.
In March, the Sydney Architectural Conservation Society asked the corporation to issue a request for expressions of interest in buying or leasing the building.
A spokesman for the corporation told the Chronicle Herald on Friday that staff was working on that request for proposals, and that the agency plans to redevelop the five lots it owns on the waterfront.
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