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- A lone firefighter sprays water Sunday night on the ruined London Central YMCA building that was transformed into an ice palace by record-low temperatures. No one was seriously injured by 72 residents of the newer part on the right were forced to flee when the fire broke out shortly after 4 a.m.
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- The ice and wreckage-encrusted swimming pool.
Investigators will be looking for the signs of arson as they probe the ruins of a spectacular $1 million blaze early Sunday that reduced the old section of the London Central YM-YWCA to ghostly, ice-encrusted ruins, acting fire chief Earl Fenwick said today.
“We always think of arson but we have no report yet,” Fenwick said as he supervised efforts to retrieve frozen equipment and chip a thick glaze of ice off the Wellington Street front of the devastated building. (Other pictures and stories are on pages A2, A12 and A13)
“When a building is only a couple of blocks from the firehall, and it’s nearly gutted when we arrive, you have to wonder if it had some help,” Fenwick said.
Seventy-two residents and Y staff members – some in flimsy nightclothes–fled into temperatures below -20 when the fire broke out about 4 a.m., apparently in a first-floor lounge of the old building adjacent to the residential wing. There were no serious injuries.
Inspector Ed Dalgity of the city fire prevention office said he had “serious doubts” investigators would be able to reach the lounge area today. He said parts of the northeast section of the building “are either gutted completely or the remaining structure is loaded down with ice, making entry dangerous.”
The first fire trucks arrived at the scene at 4:12 a.m., but despite the efforts of 50 firefighters and four aerial trucks the 84-year-old structure was virtually destroyed in a matter of hours.
Firehoses were still pumping water on smouldering wreckage inside the building this morning, but most efforts were directed at cleaning up and chipping off the tons of ice that gave the unstable front wall the appearance of an ice castle.
Fenwick said one of the two peaks on the front wall could collapse if a wind comes up. “The other one is down there,” he said, pointing to a mound of ice laced with a frozen spaghetti of firehoses.
One fire ladder was grafted to the main arch of the building in a solid cast of ice. The acting chief said some hoses were frozen so solidly they had to be towed behind trucks like logs back to the central fire hall.
City snowplows were chewing through the skating rink of ice on Wellington between Dundas Street and Queens Avenue this morning in an effort to get that barricaded block open to traffic.
Public utilities commission crews, which cut off power and water to the Y building Sunday morning, were working to clean up the mess. Electrical superintendent Fred Clark said the Y and the former Tom Munro sports store next door were the only buildings on the block without power and water.
Meanwhile, harried Y general manager Murray Faulkner said he’s hoping staff can get into the new section of the building, which sustained only smoke and water damage, to recover records.
Faulkner, who said the $1-million damage estimate is “certainly not high”, added that the Y is trying to get staff members into the residential wing to recover residents’ belongings.
For the residents, all of whom were in the unharmed adjacent five-storey residential wing, the drama began when they were roused from their beds by buzzing fire alarms.
A few threw on clothing but many were clad only in nightclothes as they hustled out into -22 degree weather only moments before flames engulfed the old section of the centre. Fire officials said a firewall protected the residential wing from the flames but smoke and water damage will likely be extensive.
The dazed residents took shelter in the lobby of the London Life building across the street and were later taken to the City Centre Holiday Inn where they spent Sunday night.
Fire department Platoon Chief Ernie Fleetwood said because of “the balloon type” structure of the
(Please turn to Page A2, Col. 2)
