A firefighter has sustained serious heat-related injuries in a four-alarm grass fire in Rouge Park on Sunday afternoon, officials say.
Toronto police and firefighters were on the scene of the “large” fire at Plug Hat Road and Beare Road just after noon, police said in a post on X.
The firefighter’s injuries are not life-threatening, and they were taken to hospital “as a precaution,” fire officials and paramedics said.
Dan Vieira, district chief with the fire department’s public information office, said firefighting efforts are often challenging in the area due to a lack of water supply.
“It’s not a very, very densely populated area — a lot of farm fields, a lot of large grass areas and not a lot of fire hydrants,” he said.
Firefighters used a relay pump technique, where multiple fire engines are positioned along a route to boost and transport water over long distances from a water source to the fire scene, according to Vieira.
“It takes a lot of resources, it takes a lot of manpower to be able to do that,” he said.
The fire is now contained, with some crews remaining on scene to monitor it, Vieira said.
Roads in the area re-opened Sunday evening, police said around 9:30 p.m. Westbound Steeles Avenue lanes had been closed, and Beare Road had been closed from Steeles Avenue to Old Finch Avenue.