The Dauphin Fire Department's aerial ladder truck was out of town, undergoing maintenance when a fire destroyed the Dauphin Village Mall, but its not known what difference it could have made.
Fire chief Cam Abrey says they can't tell at this point how much of an impact the truck would have made were it available at the time.
"You know, it's one of those things that we just can predict whether it would have made a huge difference or not. Would it have helped? Yes; it probably would have made the call a lot shorter, but the amount of damage may have been very similar."
Abrey says the fire spread so rapidly and they're still not sure which of the building's roofs the fire was between.
Two mechanics had come to Dauphin to try and make repairs to the ladder truck here, but Abrey says they found they would need to take it to a specialty shop in Winnipeg.
