Firefighters in the Montreal region battled a pair of spectacular and stubborn blazes Tuesday, which took hours to control and caused extensive damage.
A Montreal firefighter was taken to hospital after falling from the second storey of a building during a major Tuesday morning fire in the St. Henri district, fire department spokesperson Élise Breault said.
The initial alarm of what quickly blossomed into a five-alarm blaze on Bourget St., near Ste. Émilie St., was sounded at 10:29 a.m., she added.
More than 100 firefighters and 30 vehicles converged on the large, two-storey, brick-and-wood structure, which has commercial tenants on the ground floor and about 10 apartments on the second storey.
Breault said she had no immediate news of the injured firefighter’s condition. Earlier Tuesday in St. Eustache, northeast of Montreal, arson investigators were deployed following a stubborn overnight blaze in a lumber yard – the second at the same location in the past few weeks.
The initial alarm was triggered about 2:50 a.m. in the lumberyard of the Centre de Rénovation BMR Matco on 25th Ave. E., south of Highway 640 and just north of St. Laurent St.
The flames spread to a large adjacent bus garage, operated by Autobus Robert Paquette & Fils Inc., causing considerable damage there.
It took more than seven hours before the fire was officially declared under control, said Constable Normand Brulotte, a spokesperson for the St. Eustache police force.
No injuries were reported. Brulotte pegged the preliminary damage estimate at about $500,000.
At least five dozen firefighters from a broad swath of communities northwest of Laval were called in to help master the fire.
A smaller fire had hit the same lumberyard several weeks ago, Brulotte said. Investigators had earlier ruled out a criminal origin for that incident. Whether the more recent blaze was arson “is still to be determined,” he said. Firefighters who assisted came from the nearby municipalities of Deux-Montagnes, Mirabel, Boisbriand, Ste. Thérèse and Pointe-Calumet
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Firefighters+battle+stubborn+blazes/5973328/story.html#ixzz1j6gS2Rdg
