Fire decimates 11 townhomes in Hamilton
Winds carried flames through roof of units; no deaths or injuries
HAMILTON— Eleven townhomes were engulfed and completely destroyed after a dead-of-night fire tore through a quaint Winona neighbourhood early Monday and left millions of dollars worth of damage in its path.
More than 60 firefighters responded to Edenrock Drive, just north of Winona Road and Barton Street, shortly after 2:40 a.m. for a well-involved structure fire at a three-storey townhome.
The blaze started in an end unit of a block of nine townhomes, said Manny Garcia, supervisor with Ontario’s Office of the Fire Marshal.
Prevailing winds carried the fire through the roof line of the home and over to the adjacent row of units, where nine homes have been reduced to near rubble.
Investigators have yet to determine the cause of the blaze.
Garcia estimated the damage to be between $5 million and $7 million.
“I would imagine that entire nine-block of homes is totalled and will have to come down,” Garcia said. “It’s completely destroyed. There’s nothing left to rebuild.”
Garcia said the exterior blaze bounced from one roof to the next before collapsing into individual homes and ripping through drywall.
“Hamilton police were knocking on doors, trying to get people out, and the roofs were coming down overtop of them,” he said. “When it’s an exterior fire with extraordinary winds, all bets are off.”
No one was injured in the fire, a feat Garcia likened to a miracle.
“We could have lost a number of people,” Garcia said. “I can’t say enough about the first responders.”
Garcia said between 40 and 80 people living in the 11 affected townhomes have been displaced. A displacement centre has been established at a nearby hotel. A GoFundMehas been made available to help raise funds for the ailing families.
Antonio Neglia was in his basement, about eight homes away from the blaze’s epicentre, when he heard “a loud pop.”
“I was playing video games with friends and they asked me what the sound was,” he said. “I didn’t think anything of it at first.”
Neglia checked the Hamilton fire department’s incident feed on Twitter. It indicated a multiple-alarm structure fire just down the road.
He got up and looked out the window, his girlfriend sound asleep in their bedroom upstairs.
“And I saw orange lights everywhere from the fire,” Neglia said. “I woke up my girlfriend, picked up our bird and rabbit, and went outside in case we had to evacuate.”
Within minutes, fire crews were at his doorstep telling him to leave the area. The fire could be seen from kilometres away.
Embers from the blaze landed in neighbouring streets and backyards.
Jennifer Rullo, who lives just steps from the affected row of homes, was awakened by the sound of persistent sirens.
She, too, looked out the window. The street was full of people. The homes next door were engulfed in flames.
“It was surreal,” Rullo said. “If the wind went the other way, it would’ve easily caught up to me.”
Mike Beszlej, who oversaw the fire from his backyard, said “it just kept jumping, jumping, jumping, from one roof to the next.”
“We were worried the whole neighbourhood was going to go down. I can’t believe how quickly it spread.”
Neighbours say the area of townhomes was built in 2012.
Garcia said he is unaware whether the affected homes met provincial fire safety code standards. He said investigators are checking neighbouring homes of similar build to “see whether or not they have the appropriate fire blocks and fire partitions.”