TILLSONBURG A resident hurried to warn others about a fire in their six-storey apartment building in Tillsonburg on Tuesday morning.
“There were alarms, but if you’re in the bedroom you can’t hear it very well,” said third-floor resident Art Surette. “I woke my wife (Bev) up. I was in my pyjamas having coffee when the alarm went off. There was a hell of a lot of noise upstairs, a banging noise, so I knew there was something wrong upstairs. So I ran up and banged on everybody’s doors.”
Surette went back to his own apartment and got dressed before returning to the fourth floor, where it’s believed the fire started.
“I knew there was fire coming out of (an) apartment, there was smoke. (The woman) came out and I couldn’t even see her face. The smoke was thick; I told her to get down on her knees. She couldn’t do that, so I finally got a hold of her hand and I walked her out.”
Tillsonburg Fire and Rescue Services responded quickly to the fire at 195 Lisgar Avenue after receiving the call at 6:52 a. m.
Oxford OPP also received a 911 call from someone at the Dave Johnson Memorial Dog Park who saw flames coming from the building.
“The first responder was there within 12 minutes,” said Deputy Mayor Dave Beres at the Tillsonburg Community Centre Lions Auditorium where the town set up an emergency shelter. “I saw it about 7:30 a. m., and flames – yellow flames – were coming out of the backend (south) unit – it was bad.”
Second-floor resident Wilfred ‘Bill’ Tait, one of 39 residents taken to the emergency shelter, managed to escape using the stairs.
“I never heard the alarm – I just happened to hear the banging and I saw (lights) flashing in the window. I shoved the window open and saw OPP and firemen down below. They hollered at me, ‘Do you need help? Can you get out?’ I said ‘yeah.’”
When firefighters first arrived there was heavy fire and smoke pouring from the south fourth-floor corner unit.
“We knew we needed more resources right off the hop so we called in Norfolk (Courtland Station) and South-West Oxford (Brownsville Station) for mutual aid,” said Tillsonburg Fire Chief Shane Caskanette.
“There were several people on balconies when we got here. The halls must have been fairly smoke-filled. We removed several, taking people off their balconies.” EMS and police were also present at the scene.
Caskanette described how they fought against the blaze while clearing people from inside.
“In these buildings, getting ‘all clears’ is key; we need to ensure everyone is safe. Ideally it’s fire floor first, then above that floor, then another floor above that one until eventually everyone gets out; however some had mobility issues. Some waited on their balconies… for up to an hour; some sheltered in place.”
Some residents were still asleep when alarms went off.
“My wife woke me up saying, ‘there’s a fire,’ and I thought ‘somebody pulled the alarm again?’ She insisted ‘It’s a fire.’ When I looked out my window smoke filled my view so I knew there was indeed a fire,” said Matt Weber, who lives on fifth floor.
“There was even smoke in stairwell,” he mentioned. “Once it’s there you don’t know how far down it goes; so going down wasn’t something I wanted to do.”
“When I opened stairwell door my thought was we’d never breathe our way down,” Weber continued. “I didn’t know what floor had caught fire.”
Art Barnard lived on sixth floor north side but couldn’t use either set of stairs as both were filled with smoke when he opened his door.
“I knew not to take stairs or elevator but where else could we go?”
Barnard waited for firefighters’ help while remaining on his balcony.
“Two people were transported to Tillsonburg hospital with non-life-threatening injuries while another seven were assessed onsite,” stated Ryan Hall, Deputy Chief of Oxford County Paramedic Services.
The paramedics planned staying at community centre throughout this emergency period.
Julie Dawley, backup community centre manager announced residents would be allowed back later that day for essential items retrievals.
The blaze remained contained strictly within fourth floor of this six-floor complex building.
“Just that specific area,” Caskanette pointed out noting “it broke fifth-floor window but no flames reached into that apartment.”
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