Elmhurst and Harley

By Dan Laxer
The Suburban

Firefighters were still on the scene of a fire that broke out the morning of Sunday, September 14. The fire was in an abandoned building on Elmhurst and Harley in the CDN-NDG borough, around the corner from the fire that displaced 16 households in a building at Westmore corner St. Jacques nearly two weeks ago.

The Montreal Fire Department was called to the scene just after 9 a.m. The fire started in an abandoned and boarded-up apartment building. Since it was abandoned, there was no electricity or gas hooked up to the building, although a truck from Energir was on the scene anyway. Police had the streets blocked off in the area. By about 11:30 there were more than 90 firefighters at the scene.

There were no injuries reported. And an adjacent building was evacuated.

Desirée McGraw, Liberal MNA for NDG, was also on the scene later in the day. She pointed out that building, which is owned by the Societe d’habitation du Québec (SHQ) has been abandoned since 2017. “For the three years, I have been working to restore three boarded-up social housing buildings, including this one.” She wrote that she has repeatedly tried to get the Quebec government to demolish the building and replace it with social housing. “The government’s inaction in this matter,” she wrote, “constitutes negligence, and this morning’s fire is the predictable consequence.”

And then she added “My thoughts also go to the neighbourhood residents, who had to endure the enormous cloud of smoke and the inconvenience caused by the work. It is clear that their fears about the risks this abandoned building poses to the neighbourhood have unfortunately been confirmed.”

The smoke from the fire could be seen rising into the sky from several points in the city. The smoke and fumes wafted into Montreal West.

Firefighters were on the scene for most of the day. n