Temperatures are starting to warm up in Sault Ste. Marie but local water pipes apparently didn't get the memo.
Sault firefighters have been scrambling to keep up with a rash of sprinkler head and pipe bursts around the city.
At 11:34 p.m. Sunday, Fire Services responded to a broken water pipe and sprinkler head in the veneer mill at Boniferro Mill Works at 45 Third Line West.
At 7:22 a.m. Monday they were called to the Days Inn at 332 Bay St. after water was found in the main floor hallway. They opened the ceiling and found a burst pipe.
A half-hour later, firefighters were called next door to the Holiday Inn Express at 320 Bay after another frozen pipe burst.
And just after 1 p.m., they scrambled to the Sault Star building on Old Garden River Rd. after a pipe burst in the uninsulated shipping and receiving area.
Minimal damage was reported in these cases but the businesses were placed under fire watch until their sprinkler systems are brought back online.
Around 9 p.m. last night, firefighters extinguished a clothes dryer fire on Chapple Ave.
The flames were confined to the dryer but there were "lots of flames in the basement," Platoon Chief Chris Gillespie told SooToday.
A smoke alarm alerted a woman and her two children and they left the residence before firefighters arrived, Gillespie said.
The fire was put out with a carbon dioxide extinguisher and firefighters remained for about one hour to ventilate the home.