Paletta International owner speaks about the massive fire that caused $10 million in damages

It’s been almost two months since the massive fire at the Paletta International building in Burlington. The fire marshal’s office has wrapped up their part of the investigation, they don’t know what caused the fire and the building has now been handed over to owner.

“We were all in the office and we actually heard and felt a large rumbling coming from the ceiling. A couple of my office staff saw some steel beams come through the wall and the fire alarm went off and about 10 seconds after that we saw smoke coming into our office.” Angelo Paletta, owner.

They all got out and within minutes the entire east side of the building was engulfed causing about $10 million in damage. Their tenet, a meat processor called Tender Choice Foods, have since filed for bankruptcy leaving about 150 employees without jobs. Prior to the fire their operating license had been suspended by the Canadian Food Inspection agency for failing to meet requirements relating to building maintenance. There were contractors working there the day it caught fire.

We reached out to the parent company of Tender Choice Foods to ask about their employees, their plans going forward and if there was a working sprinkler system, they wouldn’t answer any of our questions instead directing us to with their court appointed receiver Deloitte who weren’t able to answer either.