The Montreal City Police Service (SPVM) has opened an investigation into the fire which heavily damaged a building on Notre-Dame Street, in Old Montreal, during the night from Thursday to Friday.
According to the SPVMone person was seriously injured in the fire and taken to hospital in critical condition.
The police department has opened an investigation and is treating the matter as a fire of suspicious origin.
As the fire was not completely extinguished, investigators were unable to enter the rubble of the building.
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Around a hundred firefighters were mobilized to extinguish the flames which quickly spread throughout the structure, from the ground floor to the roof.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Alain Béland
According to the information we have, the flames broke out around 2:40 a.m. on the ground floor of the building where there is a restaurant. The blaze spread quickly in the old 1923 building located at the corner of Bonsecours and Notre-Dame streets.
The flames progressed to the upper floors and eventually to the roof. Two people who were in the apartments above the restaurant were evacuated.
The fire required the intervention of more than a hundred firefighters. Smoke still hung in the streets of downtown Friday morning.
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A plume of smoke was still visible above downtown Montreal this morning.
Photo: Radio-Canada / Éric Plouffe
A command post was dispatched to the scene and a large security perimeter is still erected at the corner of Notre-Dame and Bonsecours streets.
According to the City of Montreal’s property roll, the owner of the building, Émile Benamor, is also the owner of the William-Watson-Ogilvie building, on Place D’Youville, where seven people were killed and nine others were injured during an arson attack on March 16, 2023.
