Serious fire at auto shop in Shawville

Serious fire at auto shop in Shawville

A fire broke out at the auto shop BAP 148 in Shawville last night (December 7), severely damaging the building. No one was reported injured.

Shawville Clarendon Fire Chief Lee Laframboise said that they received the call at around 10:15 p.m. Wednesday evening, and responded with 20 firefighters and four trucks. He said that when the arrived, the fire was hot enough to have busted some of the garage windows, and crews were on scene for around 3.5 hours putting it out. Two cars were on hoists in the garage at the time and were damaged.

Owned and operated by the MacGregor family (Riley, his father Gord and grandfather Cecil Hodgins) of Bristol Auto Performance, the Shawville location opened in 2019. In a post on social media, Riley thanked the public for their words of support and said that they were “fully prepared and looking forward” to serving customers at their Bristol location.

Laframboise said that while the fire itself was largely confined to the garage and a back room, it was difficult to say how much damage the smoke and heat had done to other parts of the building. In addition to the garage, the building housed a barbershop on the ground floor and a yoga studio upstairs, operated by Peggy Hodgins-MacGregor.

Laframboise said that they had to return in the morning to extinguish some smoldering rubble. The cause of the blaze is currently under investigation.