After almost 10 years at our Lake Major Road address, we are excited to be moving to Gurholt Dr.

“The new branch is bigger, brighter and better and has a lot more storage,” says Kevin Clarke, SVP and Managing Director, Eastern Region. “We now have expanded storage facilities and can also provide more efficient content handling and restoration services to our customers. As well, we are excited about the new location because it also creates the opportunity for us to bring in a desiccant dryer enabling us to offer enhanced document recovery services to our customers and clients; a specialty service that FirstOnSite offers, but we haven’t been able to provide in-house before”.

The new location allows us to better meet the needs of residents across the entire province and across the eastern region. We are now located at 39 Gurholt Dr, Dartmouth NS. The phone number is unchanged: 1.902.434.7199. Look for information about our Grand Opening!

Luckily, there were no fatalities, but nearly 100 residents were left homeless.

FirstOnSite crews arrived at the scene after being called by insurance adjusters the following day.  Of the 64 units, 32 had been completely destroyed.  In the remaining units, they found the first floor flooded with three feet of water, and another floor had extensive smoke damage.

The crew set up safety fencing and water mitigation measures, and proceeded to pump water out of the basement.  Following the fire, temperatures dipped to a low of -27 C. FirstOnSite worked quickly to bring in portable heat sources to mitigate any further damage to units or property inside.

“It looks like residents will be allowed to return to their units to pack their belongings as early as next week, after fire investigators release the scene,” said Mike Sherban, Project Manager.

After securing the scene and preparing the building for restoration, the FirstOnSite crew supported insurance adjusters and firefighters. Others in the community are also offering support. Global TV filed a report on one of the residents who lost everything and how his co-workers donated a day’s worth of wages to help him find a new place to live.

This is the biggest job the new Edmonton branch has tackled so far in 2012.  When asked how the crew handled the job, Dan Hislop, District General Manager, was beaming.

“We have a great crew here,” he said.  “We’re looking forward to a great year in Edmonton, helping the community when it needs it most.  We’ll be there.”

Click here to view the Global TV clip.

Kim Crist, VP of International Sales

As an additional element of our drive to provide superior restoration services, and in recognition of the unique requirements of disaster recovery following some commercial and Large Loss events, we are pleased to announce the addition of respected industry veteran Kim Crist, as our new VP of International Sales.

In this new role, Kim brings her unique operational and senior business knowledge of the restoration industry in the United States to assist with our ongoing drive to provide ever better service. Her contacts and relationships will help assist in strengthening our position with US based decision makers who often times are also involved with larger commercial and Large Loss projects north of the border.

While Kim is new to FirstOnSite, she has a long history in the US restoration industry. She comes to us with 27 years’ experience in all phases of restoration. Kim started in a family owned and operated business and has worked every type of disaster. Since 1993, Kim has been on the business development side working with carriers, brokers, agents and the end user specializing in commercial property claims. She has spent her last 2 years in restoration and reconstruction consulting with an emphasis on Builder’s Risk.

“I look forward to working with the FirstOnSite service family. I am very enthusiastic about leveraging my relationships in the States with insurance companies that underwrite and administer claims throughout North America. Furthermore, I can’t wait to introduce new clients to our unique corporate structure and the high level of our service offerings that FirstOnSite can provide.”

Kim can be reached at 727.744.1962 or kcrist(at)firstonsite.ca

“Although we usually restore homes and businesses, we decided that restoring Santa’s float was something we should add to our list” said Jason Prescott, District Manager.

Since then, FirstOnSite has had the honour of pulling Santa’s float in the community’s parade.

Happy Holidays!

The FireFit Championships is an international competition based on fire fighting tasks commonly performed in emergency situations. Competitors are pitted against one another in a variety of good spirited and job-related events, including an obstacle course, hose hoists and more. All competitors wear full turnout gear (helmet, coat and pants with liners, boots and gloves) and a breathing apparatus to complete the courses in the fastest time possible.

The event also included fundraising initiatives for the Canadian Cancer Society, Medicine Hat Firefighter Burn Fund and Muscular Dystrophy. We congratulate all the competitors and are proud to have been a part of the 2011 excitement.