An old wooden shack behind their building went up in smoke, according to their video camera footage. That was bad enough, but when it leapt onto the roof of Escape Room Barrie, the fire took out two of the game rooms in the back and damaged others. “It has fully destroyed two of escape rooms,” said co-owner Kathryn Abel of the business on Ellen Street. Abel said she and her husband Tim got the call from their alarm company around 5 a.m., she said. “The firefighters had to break in first thing,” Abel said. “Our building caught on fire because of building set next to ours.” Police are now investigating the fire that started at a property on Victoria Street and spread to a business on Ellen St. as suspicious. The couple spent the day watching firefighters fully extinguish the hot spots, took pictures and reviewed neighbouring video footage. “We’re downtown Barrie, we’ve got a ton of cameras in the area,” she said. While waiting on word from their insurance company, the couple is hoping to use their Escape Room Barrie online sales of games to help pay their staff.
