Man so badly burned in fire, dental records may be needed to identify him

The deceased appears to have stayed in deadly proximity to blaze on balcony

THE

MAN KILLED in a balcony fire at a downtown highrise was so badly burned that he has yet to be identified.

Autopsy results show he died of burns and smoke inhalation, according to investigator Kevin Pahor of the Ontario Fire Marshal’s Office. It may take dental records to determine, for certain, who the adult male is.

Knowing that, it raises questions about the man’s horrific death.

The victim was found Thursday night on the 12th-floor balcony of 155 Market St., a 15-storey building known as Spring Garden Apartments between Hess and Caroline streets north.

Nobody else was in the unit when firefighters arrived around 5:15 p.m., Pahor says.

Though the fire was contained to the balcony, and the door from the balcony into the relative safety of the apartment unit was unlocked, the man appears to have stayed in deadly

proximity to the blaze.

Pahor says he does not believe the man had a disability and says the fire “does not appear suspicious, at this point.”

The fire was visible from the ground when fire crews arrived at the scene and the dispatch was upgraded to a multiple alarm call. Damage is estimated at $35,000.

Pahor says the circumstances of the death are unusual and he can’t draw any conclusions about the cause of the fire or the scenario around it at this point.

He has cleared the scene but it may be weeks before the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto has toxicology results from the deceased and determines from debris samples if accelerants were used.

Though nobody else was injured in the blaze and other tenants were allowed back into their units soon after the fire was extinguished, the original unit was filled with smoke that spilled into the 12th-floor hallway, according to police.

Yet tenants reported they didn’t hear a fire alarm, which raises more troubling questions.

While each unit in the building has a smoke detector, Pahor says there aren’t any — or any sprinklers — in the halls. That concerned him so much that he called the Hamilton Fire Department back to the scene Friday.

What they determined, after closely reading the fire code, was that because of the building’s age, it isn’t required to have hallway detectors and sprinklers, like more modern buildings must.

With much of the building being made of concrete, Pahor says it is unlikely an alarm going off in one unit would alert anyone down the hall to a problem.

Yet tenants reported they didn’t hear a fire alarm, which raises more troubling questions.