Fire Erupts From Gas Main, but Firemen Come to the Rescue

BY: MATIAS DE DOVITIIS

The best type of local news is the news that something good happened or about that thing that did not make the news, because a tragedy was avoided. When the Downsview Advocate got a call from Yvonne Smerdon, an avid local photographer, that is exactly what we found.

It was a mid-June afternoon, at a condo townhouse complex on 2901 Jane Street, when local residents heard a loud banging sound. Yvonne was outside, but did not realize there was a fire until one of the neighbours pointed it out to her.

A gas line had ruptured, and the leak caught fire, sending flames up high in the air.

“I saw the whole thing. We had to evacuate the house. I grabbed my camera,” she tells us.

All in all, the construction of the townhomes saved the day. The brick wall held as the fire spewed out. Firemen came on the scene and hosed down the wall for hours while they prepared to take out the fire. For Yvonne and her neighbours, this was a very stressful experience. “It was really scary, because the whole wall of the house could have blown and taken down the whole block.”

The next part seems out of a Hollywood stunt scene.

Fire crews from five trucks from Stations 142, 143, 145 and 411 prepared two hoses pointed at the fire to create a wall of water that could push the fire down. This would create enough crawl space for someone to approach the pipe and cut off the flow of gas. The large number of firemen holding on to the hose is due to the fact that any deviation in the water stream could seriously harm the fireman approaching the wall. “I was shocked. The fireman had to crawl on the ground to turn off the gas. He put his life on the line,” said Yvonne.

In the picture, you see Greg White, Captain of Station 145, approaching the fire source, and he is then followed by Sheldon Dessa, Captain of the Hazmat Unit. We approached the crew of Fire Station 142 to get their take and spoke to a number of the Firemen. When asked if they had seen anything more intense, Jordan Corcoran said that all in all "It was a more controlled situation, visibility was clear. I have been in worse, but it could have escalated very, very quickly."

Yvonne thinks that the firemen “need appreciation and thanking them for their hard work.” She knows that it could have been a lot worse but is thankful that nobody was hurt and that nothing more came of this incident. The wall and gas pipes have been repaired and a tragedy was averted.