Damage to the Pine Ridge Elementary School is still being assessed after a fire broke out on the roof Wednesday afternoon. The building still under construction is slated to open for the 2019/2020 school year.

Winkler Fire Chief Richard Paetzold says they got the call around 2:40 p.m, and arrived to find a good portion of the west side of the roof on fire.

A view of the school from Roblin Boulevard taken Thursday morning

Paetzold says their first priority was to ensure no one was in danger. He says they were quickly assured that all workers on site were safely gathered at the yard's muster point. Once that was established, Paetzold says they determined their plan of action. "We had a crew deploy lines from the inside, get to the roof from the interior to prevent its spread going any further to the east. While that was being done we set up our aerial ladder to deal with the fire."

Meanwhile, Paetzold says the extent of the damage is also not yet determined. "We still haven't heard from the people that are checking that out." He noted to fully put out the fire, they did have to go through a couple of burning layers.

Paetzold says battling fires at a construction site always brings on extra challenges. In this case, because most of the stairwells aren't complete, he said crews had to use a ladder and construction scaffolding to get to the second floor and up to the roof. He adds there are also no standpipes in place, so crews had to lay hose line through the inside. "That all had to be done before they could actually start fighting the fire. I commend our guys for getting up there as quick as they could."