Just before 7am, a neighbour was walking from his home to his business in a converted house just a few blocks away. Almost exactly halfway between the two locations, he noticed flames on a porch. He called 9-1-1 and started banging on the door of the six-unit building to wake its occupants. Everyone was evacuated in time for it to become a three-alarm situation just 20 minutes later.
Twenty fire trucks lined four sides of the block. There were pumpers and rescue vehicles on one side, and aerial ladder trucks on the other two sides. Fire suppression teams hunkered down in front of the house while other firefighters stationed themselves like sharp shooters on nearby roofs, spraying the burning house from the flank. A paramedic bus was stationed on the remaining side of the block and two ambulances sat nearby. Police vehicles cut off traffic at four distant intersections forcing city buses and their stops to be rerouted. City crews set up barricades while the hydro and gas companies closed down the grid. Neighbours took in the people who had to be evacuated, serving them tea and bagels and the Salvation Army sent its canteen truck to serve coffee and sandwiches to emergency personnel.
There was a real sense of camaraderie. Everyone was working together and looking out for each other. It was organized madness.
Five hours after the fire was reported, a flatbed towed an antique car from the parking lot of the adjacent auto garage to make space for an excavator, and the gas company dug a trench in front of the smoldering house to cap the gas line. After studying the blaze for hours and taking a detailed report from Frank (the man who reported the fire), investigators gave the go-ahead to move the excavator into position to begin tearing down the smoldering building. The excavator began exposing hot spots which firefighters calmly doused with water — a particularly delicate part of this process was taking down the chimney and exterior wall that sat just a few feet from the neighbouring house. The crews of the ladder trucks drained and rolled their hoses, closed down and left and roads were reopened. The paramedic bus headed home and the barricades were moved inwards. A hydro crew spliced the wire that fed the house.
A short time later, all that remained of the fleet of emergency vehicles and 55 firefighters was a single pumper truck and its crew. City workers swept up pieces of house, some of which had traveled several blocks on streams of water, and another crew cleaned up clogged sewage lines.
Things are quiet now. Power and gas service has been restored to the neighbourhood. A single security guard sits in a car in the barricaded block that was bustling with activity all day. The house has been reduced to a pile of rubble that has drawn people for a look during their evening stroll.
Two trees remain standing tall at the front of the affected property. They seem to have survived the trauma. One is covered in a blanket of ice which shimmers under the street light. If that tree could only talk.
Updated March 28.
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