A fire broke out on Monday evening at the historic Ratcliff Airlines hangar in South Porcupine at around 8:15 p.m. according to the on-duty fire captain.
It appears that it is now completely destroyed.
"The owner of the building was taken to hospital, that's all I know right now," said Deputy Fire Chief Gerry Sabourin.
"We had seven or eight units at the scene, probably about 35 to 40 firefighters," said Sabourin.
Unfortunately a big loss will be taken by the local cadets
"We do our sailing program on Porcupine Lake in the summer, and during the winter we store our trailer inside the hangar. We had five sailboats, including all the sails," said Pierre Joly, the Commanding Officer of the Navy League Cadets in Timmins.
Pointing to the smouldering building, Joly shows the location where he last saw the trailer
"You can see an A-frame inside, there's nothing left on it. I don't even see the masts, which were aluminum" said Joly, indicating the intensity of the fire.
He said he did not know any information about how the fire started, but confirmed the one injury.
"Nothing other than what the policeman said, Mr. Ratcliff was in at the time, and he's currently at the hospital," said Joly.
The hangar, situated on the southwest corner of Porcupine Lake, sits directly beside another local landmark, the Aiport Hotel.
The hotel was evacuated quickly.
At ground level, the popular Shady Lady Lounge had patrons inside at the time, as well as tenants sleeping in the rooms upstairs.
Everyone got out safely.
The hotel, as confirmed by its owners, is primarily free of any blemishes, except possible smoke damage.
Units from the South Porcupine, Whitney and Timmins fire departments attended the fire.
