A townhouse complex in the framing stages was engulfed in flames by the time firefighters arrived. (Submitted by Andrea O'Kelly)
More than 100 residents were forced from a retirement home in Ottawa's Kanata area when a fire broke out in a nearby construction site, badly damaging two townhouse complexes.
The fire started around 11:30 p.m. ET Tuesday at a townhouse project in the framing stages of construction on Stonehaven Drive, Ottawa Fire Services reported.
By the time firefighters arrived, that complex of about 12 units near Bridgestone Drive in the Bridlewood Park neighbourhood was enveloped by fire. The flames spread to a nearby eight-unit complex that was in the final stages of construction, but unoccupied.
More than 100 seniors, many in wheelchairs or pushing walkers, fled the nearby Stonehaven Manor Retirement Residence. (CBC)
Firefighters estimated the final damage to the buildings at $3 million, said Marc Messier, spokesman for Ottawa Fire Services.
The intense heat could be felt at nearby Stonehaven Manor Retirement Residence, forcing more than 100 people, many of them in wheelchairs or pushing walkers, to leave the building.
They stayed in OC Transpo buses and a nearby restaurant, sipping coffee brought by neighbours, before being allowed back into their apartments. No one was sent to hospital.
The fire blew fountains of glowing embers high into the air. Glowing, grape-sized chunks of burning wood rained down on homes and yards on streets like Brandy Creek Crescent and Pine Hill Drive a block or two away, reported CBC's Cory O'Kelly.
Some people were seen up on their roofs at midnight, hosing the embers off their homes. Neither neighbouring homes nor the white pines that ring the neighbourhood caught fire, but the blaze left its mark.
On Wednesday morning, chunks of black debris were scattered across lawns, O'Kelly said. Black burn marks could be seen on decks, and holes had been melted through lawn furniture and trampolines.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2010/05/05/ottawa-kanata-fire.html#ixzz0mz8OKqCE
Ottawa International Poets and Writers for human Rights (OIPWHR)
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