>Grimsby council greenlights new fire Station 2, part of $6.5 million plan/ Pg. 4 > LED lightbulb goes on, raising BBBS funds Pg. 5 > Vineland Estates earns tourism award Pg. 10 > Readers chime in Pgs. 17-18 Thursday, March 19, 2015 Vol. 3 Issue 46
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Quad-blaze night first of its kind for West Lincoln By Mike Williscraft NewsNow It was a night West Lincoln firefighters – and virtually every surrounding fire department – will never forget when four active fires broke out overnight Saturday. “No, we’ve never seen anything like it,” said Kevin McIntyre, West Lincoln’s deputy chief. “We were all in on the first call that came in around 11:40 p.m. Soon we had three structure fires on the go. The fourth call came just as we were getting things under control at the first fire so we got our guys over there.” In his memory, McIntyre said he could only recall one or two times when two working fires were underway simultaneously. The fire calls came in for Vaughan Road first; South Chippawa Road just before midnight; Reg. Rd. 8 just before 1 a.m., and; finally Westbrook Road (the municipal border between West Lincoln and Hamilton) just after 3 a.m. The Ontario Fire Marshal’s office is conducting an investigation into the fires as is Niagara Regional Police and Hamilton Police. Mcintyre said the only thing he could see each incident had in common, which he was very appreciative of, was that none of the structures had anything living in them. “The first fire was in an empty house. It was dark when we got there. The only thing left is the foundation,” said McIntyre. The South Chippawa fire was a barn. “There was no livestock, but about 150 round bales of hay. We had to bring in some
See FIRE, Page 2
Mini-putt pinnacle
The Kinsmen Club of Grimsby reached two milestones on Sunday, generating $10,000 for West Lincoln Memorial Hospital Foundation and achieving its 20th anniversary of its Greater Grimsby Mini-Putt. Foundation treasurer Kevin Antonides, left, accepts the cheque from Kin organizer Bruce Bond. See Page 6 for more coverage. Williscraft - Photo
Community rallies to help Rex Residents and fellow business operators alike are rallying to support Rex Ge. Ge is the man who operates a greenhouse and nursery on Hwy. 20 at Mountain Road whose stock and heating/watering system was all destroyed after hydro was turned off due
to a $360 which had gone overdue. Ge has done his best to refuse help, holding out hope his hydro provider, Niagara Peninsula Energy, comes around and agrees to compensate him. An NPE official told NewsNow last week they don’t believe they have any liabil-
ity, adding measures they the company took – which included placing disconnection notices in Ge’s rural mailbox – were sufficient. While there are a host of circumstances as to why Ge was paying less than close attention to his bills – he had had a perfect
record with NPE for about 13 years – it was overdue since being paid to current in December. Neighbours, friends and readers of NewsNow who saw last week’s story have offered to help GE in a number of ways. Ge is very appreciative of their offers but See HELP, Page 3