Fire destroys Middleton building once raided in stolen property investigation

February 7, 2025

Fire destroys Middleton building once raided in stolen property investigation

Firefighters work to contain a fire in a vacant building in downtown Middleton Thursday morning.

A thick cloud of smoke rolled slowly across Middleton on Thursday morning as fire burned in a vacant building in the downtown.

The fire was reported shortly after 6:30 a.m. When the first firefighters arrived, they found a high volume of fire burning in a one-storey section at the back of the building, which once housed a carpet store.

In recent years the building has gained notoriety in the town as one where stolen goods were allegedly stored after being taken from homes and businesses in the town and neighbouring communities.

In June 2023, RCMP executed search warrants at the property and at another on Old Mill Road in South Farmington. Three people were arrested at the Middleton building and another in South Farmington.

During the searches, police found and seized a significant amount of stolen property, including a pickup truck and tools.

One town resident at the scene said he had friends who had been victimized.

Another person at the scene, who also didn’t want to be named, said the building had recently been sold.

Smoke billows from a burning building in Middleton Thursday morning. There were no injuries in the blaze, which destroyed the structure.

Middleton fire chief Mike Toole said the fire was well underway when they arrived. The fire burned out through the roof at the back of the building quickly, and the concrete-block walls collapsed fairly early during the incident.

The fire then progressed to a two-storey section at the front of the 35-metre-long building. The upstairs was residential, while the downstairs was part of the old carpet store.

Toole said the doors were barricaded shut so there was no indication anyone had been inside when the fire broke out. He said that with that information and not knowing what the inside of the building was like, firefighters took a defensive position and attacked the fire from the outside for safety.

“We’re going to protect exposures and try to contain the fire,” he said shortly after 9 a.m. Toole said an excavator had been called to start to tear down the exterior walls so firefighters could get to the flames within.

Fire was breaking out through the second-storey windows and through the roof of that section of the building by 8 a.m. An aerial truck dumped water down through the opening.

Firefighters from half a dozen departments were on the scene in -17 C weather. Toole said the extreme cold made for difficult conditions and iced up the roads around the building.