At approximately 19:20 hours on Thursday January 8, fire apparatus were dispatched to a structure fire at the corner of Adelaide and Main St. in the city's North End, directly across the street from Station House #5. 1st alarm saw R5, Quint5, E8, and DC Car 3.
Upon pulling out of the door apparatus were met with heavy smoke and fire located to the rear portion of the three story wooden structure. Battling the fire was made difficult with high winds and frigid temperatures which dipped down to the -40 degree Celsius mark.
Fire quickly spread through the old wooden building and numerous alarms brought in E1, T1, E6, E4 and Chief Robert Simonds (Fire 1). At approximately 22:45 hours the structure collapsed into a pile of burning rubble. Two people escaped the building when fire broke out, but one fire fighter was injured when he slipped on a build up of ice, which at some places had encased some of the apparatus and was estimated to be four feet thick.
Truck 1's boom was in jeopardy of breaking from the weight of the ice build up so much that a city works dept dump truck was brought in and the boom lowered so that the bucket could rest on the dump truck.
Over 24 hours later the pile continues to smolder with crews still putting water on the already huge ice castle that has been created.
