A resident raced to alert fellow occupants of a fire in their six-storey building in Tillsonburg on Tuesday morning.
“There were alarms, but if you’re in the bedroom you can’t hear it very well,” said third-floor resident Art Surette. “I woke my wife (Bev) up. I was in my pajamas having coffee when the alarm went off. There was a hell of a lot of noise upstairs, a banging noise, so I knew there was something wrong upstairs. So I ran up and banged on everybody’s doors.”
Surette went back to his own apartment and got dressed before returning to the fourth floor, where it’s believed the fire originated.
“I knew there was fire coming out of (an) apartment, there was smoke. (The woman) came out and I couldn’t even see her face. The smoke was thick, I told her to get down on her knees. She couldn’t do that, so I finally got a hold of her hand and I walked her out.”
Tillsonburg Fire and Rescue Services was quick to respond to the fire at 195 Lisgar Avenue after the fire call came in at 6:52 am
Oxford OPP also received a 911 call from a person at the Dave Johnson Memorial Dog Park who saw flames coming out of the building.
“The first responder was there within 12 minutes,” said Deputy Mayor Dave Beres at the Tillsonburg Community Center Lions Auditorium where the town set up a temporary emergency shelter. “I saw it about 7:30 am and flames – yellow flames – were coming out of the backend (south) unit – it was bad.”
Second-floor resident Wilfred ‘Bill’ Tait, one of 39 residents taken to the emergency shelter, was able to get out safely using the stairs.
“I never heard the alarm – I just happened to hear the banging and I saw (lights) flashing in the window. I shoved the window open and saw OPP and firemen down below. They hollered at me, ‘Do you need help? Can you get out?’ I said ‘yeah.’”
When firefighters first arrived there was heavy fire and smoke coming out of the south fourth-floor corner unit.
“We knew we needed more resources right off the hop so we called in Norfolk (Courtland Station) and South-West Oxford (Brownsville Station) for mutual aid,” said Tillsonburg Fire Chief Shane Caskanette.
“There were a number of people on the balconies when we got here. The halls must have been fairly smoke-filled. We removed several, taking people off the balconies.” EMS and police were also on hand at the scene.
Caskanette described the process involved with fighting a fire and clearing people from the burning structure.
“In these buildings the key is to get the ‘all clears,’ get people out and make sure people are safe. Ideally it’s fire floor first, then the floor above it, then the other floor above it. Eventually everybody, but we did have some mobility issues. Some were on their balconies… for up to an hour, some sheltered in place.”
Residents evacuated from the building were transported to the community centre. “We got some cabs, some T:GO buses, school buses, anything we could find to transport people. EMS and police were fabulous,” said Caskanette.
Some residents were still sleeping when the fire alarms sounded.
“The wife woke me up and said, ‘there’s a fire,’ and I thought ‘somebody pulled the alarm again?’ She said ‘It’s a fire.’ I looked out the window and smoke was going across so I knew there was a fire,” said Matt Weber, who lives on the fifth floor.
“There was even smoke in the stairwell,” he said. “Once the smoke’s in there, you don’t know how far down. So I didn’t want to go down the stairwell.
“When I opened the stairwell door I thought we’ll never be able to breathe to make it down,” said Weber. “I didn’t know what floor the fire was on.”
Darwin Barnard, a sixth-floor resident on the north side, was unable to use either of two sets of stairs. When he opened his door, the hallway was filled with smoke.
“I knew not to take the stairs and you’re not supposed to take the elevator, but where do you go?”
Barnard waited on the balcony for assistance from firefighters.
“Two people were transported to the Tillsonburg hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. Another seven were assessed at the scene,” said Ryan Hall, Deputy Chief, Oxford County Paramedic Services.
Paramedics planned to stay at the community center for the duration of the emergency.
“Now that the immediate life threats are done there are still people with ongoing medical concerns which could be exacerbated by anxiety, medications, or who just need support,” said Hall. “It depends if there’s longer term housing requirements, we may even provide ongoing support at that destination through our Community Care Medicine Program.”
Julie Dawley, backup community center manager, announced residents would be able to return to the building later in the day to get essential items.
“When we do go back in, it will be just to get items out… and it will be floor by floor,” Dawley told the residents. “I don’t want you to panic or worry because we’re going to find places for you to stay. They’re working on that right now and we’re going to figure a plan out.”
The fire was contained on the fourth floor of the six-floor apartment building.
“Just the fire floor,” Caskanette noted. “It broke that (fifth-floor) window, but there’s no fire in the fifth floor. The fire rolled out of this (fourth-floor) window and went up there but didn’t get into that apartment.”
The Office of the Ontario Fire Marshal was notified and will help investigate the cause.
“Right now it’s too early to speculate on the cause,” said Caskanette.
Tillsonburg Fire and Rescue Services was also active Monday night responding to a structure fire in a garage attached to a Frank Street home.