The Ontario Fire Marshal is investigating after an industrial fire in Dresden which destroyed a cannabis operation.

Firefighters were called to the former MPT plant on Community Road around 3 am Monday after a passerby noticed the building in flames. About 40 firefighters from stations in Dresden, Tupperville and Thamesville were on the scene for several hours.

The single story of the building on site has been gutted. Assistant Fire Chief Sean McRoberts says the two-storey steel clad building next to it sustained smoke damage but was protected from the flames by a concrete firewall.

Once the fire was contained this morning, the fire department turned the scene over to the Chatham-Kent Police Service and the Ontario Fire Marshal’s office for an investigation. McRoberts directed the question about whether the fire was suspicious or electrical to CKPS and the OFM.

Police have yet to respond to questions about the investigation.

The building, owned by an Ontario numbered company based in the GTA, is a licensed cannabis facility according to McRoberts of the Chatham-Kent Fire Department.

Witnesses tell The Independent, four people who were believed to live onsite, were seen leaving the building with their suitcases as firefighters tried to contain the blaze behind the large blue, steel sheeting fence. McRoberts could not comment on whether the men were residents at the industrial site.