Hundreds of residents cannot go home after a fire forced the building’s sprinkler system to activate, leading to water damage causing structural concerns.
Firefighters were first called just before 9:00 a.m. on June 25 from a monitoring company reporting active alarms in a nine-storey multi-residential building in Sandy Hill.
Further, 911 callers told teams that there was a visible fire on one of the upper floors of the building. Firefighters arrived and found that an alarm on the eighth floor was triggered.
Once inside, crews encountered heavy smoke conditions and then found the remnants of a blaze in an oven in one of the apartments. The building’s sprinkler system had activated and successfully extinguished the fire.
More teams walked through the building to make sure no one else was inside. However, officials noted that the sprinkler system overhead was causing significant water damage.
“Firefighters acted quickly to mitigate the water flow by placing a fire hose over the sprinkler head and redirecting the water out a window,” a press release notes.
Although this helped prevent more damage, teams saw water had travelled down multiple floors. By 9:32 a.m., structural damage was reported in the building’s lobby from the water.
Crews tried to salvage people’s possessions by putting tarps over the items. At this point, power and water were shut off to the building, and crews made sure all 122 units were empty.
A City of Ottawa community centre has been opened to support the approximately 200 people who are displaced.
The building’s management team told CityNews in an email, “We are relieved that no one was hurt. We’ve immediately set up an emergency help desk to support tenants and are working closely with the City of Ottawa and the Fire Department.”
As of June 26, the teams at the building are starting the return of some residents. Those who can’t come home are staying in temporary accommodations with the assistance of social services in Ottawa.