Misfortune befalls the Nordique spa in Stoneham, which once again had to temporarily close its doors during the busy holiday season, this time due to a fire that occurred on Saturday night.
It was hot towels coming out of the dryer that caused the fire in the laundry room, which was a total loss, according to owner Hugues Lavoie who viewed the surveillance cameras.
Questioned by Le Journal, he said that employees left the premises around 9 p.m. Friday evening and “everything seemed [alors] normal ».
It was only around 2:20 a.m., during the night from Friday to Saturday, that the presence of smoke triggered the alarm system.
Arriving on site, firefighters quickly brought the flames under control, which prevented a widespread conflagration throughout the main building.
Photo Louis Deschênes
Up to $100,000 in losses
Mr. Lavoie estimates that it will take about a month to rebuild the laundry room, which suffered damage estimated at between $60,000 and $100,000.
For the moment, it is impossible to say when the spa will be able to restart its operations.
The owner confirms that almost all the towels, massage sheets and dressing gowns were in the laundry room, making things complicated.
“I am looking for a laundry room that could lend me equipment and that would have time to wash my towels two or three times a week […] If it wasn’t for cleaning our equipment, we could reopen very quickly, even tomorrow,” he explains.
Moreover, a post-disaster work team took care of eliminating the odors when the Journal visited the site.
Photo Louis Deschênes
Unlucky
In January 2018, a major fire ravaged the spa’s main building, forcing its closure for a year.
After rebuilding the facilities, the company was hit, like many others, by the COVID-19 pandemic at the start of 2020.
Bad luck once again affected the company in 2022 when several municipalities in the province, including Stoneham-et-Tewkesbury, had to deal with electrical outages during the holiday season.
Without electricity, the Nordique spa had closed for seven days
“The sad thing is that it always happens at Christmas or in January [pour le feu de 2018] which is truly our best time of the year,” laments Mr. Lavoie.
“Between Christmas and New Year’s Day, I have more customers than in the entire month of May,” he adds.
On Saturday, employees were busy calling back people who had reservations and informing customers staying in the 10 mini-chalets that a disaster had ruined their vacation.
