Canora apartment fire displaces 22 people: Edmonton firefighters

Edmonton fire crews worked overnight to contain an apartment fire in the Canora neighbourhood.

Fire crews arrived at a multi-residential structure fire near 152 Street and 101 Avenue just after 5 p.m. on Wednesday evening.

Crews say heavy smoke was coming from the third floor of an apartment building. The fire passed through the walls of the building and affected multiple units.

A second alarm was called, bringing in a total of 14 crews to the scene – approximately 56 firefighters.

“Yeah, unfortunately, this building is beyond salvage … Structurally, our members don’t even want to go in there unless they’re attached to a ladder company,” said District Chief Brian Williams, with Edmonton Fire Rescue Services.

The fire was just declared under control at 9:19 a.m. on Thursday, and investigators are working to determine the cause of the fire.

There were no injuries reported, but all residents were evacuated. The Emergency Support Response Team was later activated to provide assistance to 22 residents displaced by the fire.

One resident was Abijith Manikandan, whose first thought was that it was a fire drill until he saw flames reaching his home. The Canadian newcomer feared he had lost important immigration papers and passports, needing to start the journey again.

“The fire started to increase, step by step, and I lost the hope of getting any documents at that point,” Manikandan explained.

But a glimmer of hope appeared on Thursday as the bag containing Manikandan’s personal documents was found unharmed.

“I’m so proud of those guys, that wasn’t an easy thing to do … I mean, they entered off the top floor into a broken window into an unstable floor with stuff coming down on them in horrible conditions, and they went in, they found it,” explained Williams.

Manikandan said, “I was a little bit in tears to see that, and I’m so grateful for the firefighters for that, and I have no words for what they did and what it means to me.”

While Williams added, “It was touching. It was very touching.”

District Chief Williams is thankful for residents’ preparedness and says this fire highlights the importance of keeping valuable items in a protected case, and having a digital backup.

“Try to put all your documents into the cloud or something. Do not keep only the physical copy, so that at some point in time, if something goes wrong, you have at least the soft copies,” said Manikandan.

-With files from Leo Cruzat