The fire that destroyed the Watson Lake Tags store has been ruled an accident.
“The cause was an electrical event in the main office area, which had a number of electrical appliances,” said Yukon Fire Marshall Dennis Berry. “Because it was an office, it had computers and camera equipment that had been plugged into an uninterrupted power supply, which we believe to be the culprit.”
The Watson Lake store housed the town’s laundromat, a grocery store and a gas station. It burned to the ground the morning of April 3. There were no staff on the premises when the building burned.
Berry said the investigation was relatively straightforward, as are the measures that home and business owners should take to avoid accidents like this in the future.
“Fire prevention, whether it’s in your office or your home, starts with you. Make sure you’re not overloading your different electrical circuits, and with all of our different electrical appliances it’s very easy to plug power bars in and overload things,” Berry said, adding that people should only use appliances that are CSA approved.