More than 150 firefighters and 40 pumper and ladder trucks fought the fire for hours in windy, freezing weather that covered firefighters, rubble, power lines and storefronts in a coat of ice. Water froze almost as soon as it left firefighters’ hoses. One building collapsed just as fire crews were scrambling out of the way, and another had to be pulled down to allow access to hot spots inside.
Paul Jilek watched from across the street with tears in his eyes as fire trucks continued to pour water into the blackened interior of his audio-visual store, National Sound. “This is a nightmare — just devastating,” he said.
“I’ve been here 40 years, since 1968 and now … it looks like a war zone.”
Mr. Jilek said he did not have fire insurance for his business, which takes up the ground floor of the building where fire officials believe the fire started. “No insurance,” he said sadly. “You can’t get insurance on Queen Street West: The company told me the building was too old.”
Chief Stewart said the first fire trucks arrived at about 5 a.m. to find three tenants in the three-storey buildings hanging outside their windows to escape the thick smoke and flames. They were rescued by ladder trucks, he said.
But the flames spread too quickly for his firefighters to control, Chief Stewart said.
“It was very intense and the fire flashed very quickly,” he said. “It’s amazing that everyone got out.”
Glenn Hughes, who rents an apartment in one of the burned-out buildings, said he was awakened by a neighbour pounding on his door and thick, choking smoke seeping under his front door. “There was smoke everywhere,” he said. “We got out pretty quickly and then we cleared out the building next door.”
Mr. Hughes surveyed the still-smoking wreckage across the street and said he hopes the area will be rebuilt. “Hopefully everyone will rebuild, bigger and better than it was before.”
Councillor Adam Vaughan, whose ward includes the area, said the block had just recently been designated heritage buildings and included some that dated to 1880. “It’s left a hole in the heart of the city,” he said as he toured the area yesterday.
City council in September declared this stretch of Queen Street as Toronto’s first commercial heritage conservation district. To the east of the strip, the owner of a vacant lot that stretches to Portland Street has approval to build a seven-storey condominium building, with six commercial storefronts on Queen Street.
Fire Captain Adrian Ratushniak said it was too early to determine the fire’s cause.
“When you get a fire that is deep-seated and you have a lot of heat it can spread very quickly,” he said. “Consider the age of this strip of buildings … that’s a lot of very, very old wood. And very old wood burns very quickly.”
With the wind chill, temperatures dropped as low as -20C, making firefighters’ work more dangerous, Capt. Ratushniak said. “The firefighters are covered in ice; they’ve been here for hours and hours under a lot of water,” he said.
“We’re trying to rotate crews to keep them warm.” No injuries were reported. The fire continued to smoulder into the evening last night.
City engineers and fire marshals were on the scene to assess the damage to the buildings, some of which may have to be demolished, Capt. Ratushniak said.
“We’ve got thousands of litres of water on there and that puts a lot of weight on those old structures so at any point there might be another collapse.”
The fire shut down a large section of Queen Street and several cross streets in the area and was expected to remain closed to traffic for at least part of today.
Flames consumed a block of heritage buildings on Queen Street West yesterday, leaving several historic structures blackened shells in a fire that one community leader said “left a hole in the heart of the city.”
“It’s a piece of Toronto heritage that we’ve lost here,” Toronto Fire Chief Bill Stewart said at the scene, just east of Bathurst Street. “It’s sad to see them go.”
By Chris Wattie, National Post
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