'They rock and rolled quick': Crews battled blaze at building under construction in St. Boniface

A building still under constructionin Winnipeg's St. Boniface area went up in flames on Friday evening.

Paul Meneer was getting coffee at the Tim Horton's at the intersection of Marion and Archibald streets around 7:15 p.m. when a plume of dark smoke caught his eye.

When he went to check it out, he saw a partially completed building in a construction site on Archibald fully engulfed in black smoke.

"At one point, the black smoke had blacked out the whole both sides of Archibald right across to the gas station," Meneer said.

"Cars were driving through it but they couldn'tpossibly see."

Two or three minutes later, Meneer said the roof was covered in flames.

Within minutes, emergency crews arrived at the site and closed off a portion of Archibald Street. Meneer said he saw around six or seven fire trucks.

"They were there instantly They rock and rolled quick," he said.

"Two or three minutes, four minutes of those guys there, maybe five minutes it was out."

A spokesperson for the Winnipeg Police Service said police got a call about the fire around 6:40 p.m.

A portion of Archibald was closed for roughly an hour, he said. No injuries have been reported.

There's no word yet on the cause of the fire.

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