Queen St. Fire

Yesterday, a fire destroyed most of a city block at Queen and Bathurst, near my house. I took a few shots on my way to work.

This shot was taken standing at the corner of Queen and Ryerson, just across the street, at a little after 8 A.M. When I first went to my walkout at the top of my house at 6:30, I had been able to see flames shooting into the sky. You can see that the most intense flames are out by the time I took this picure, but even so, I could still feel the heat of the fire on my face. If you look, you can see that the road is wet and there are no icicles hanging from the wires in front of the involved buildings. That means the heat was keeping the water from freezing, even though it was -20 degrees with the windchill at that time.

The firefighters were still hosing the site when I got home from work at about 6:30 in the evening. My understanding is that afterward, when they were sifting through the buildings, there was another flare-up as the embers settled, and they had to pull out and douse the site again.

This second photo shows the plume of smoke streaming east and southeast from the site. The condo building on Richmond and over toward Spadina were completely enveloped in smoke. I can only imagine what these people's homes smelled like at the end of the day. I caught a faint whiff of it in my own house when I got home, even though I live to the northwest, the opposite direction that the smoke was blowing.

I had to walk over to Spadina that morning to get the streetcar, essentially the same direction as the smoke was drifting. I must have breathed in more of the smoke than I realized at the time. It was late afternoon before the unpleasant tickling and burning sensations were gone from my lungs and sinuses.

It's such a shame. I think one of the stores that was lost, along with longtime Queen St. fixures like Duke's and Suspect Video, is Preloved. I liked to browse in there, but I never bought anything because it seemed a bit expensive. Now I wish I had, of course. Too late now. I hope the business owners find the energy and resources to reestablish themselves somewhere new.

As for the people who lived in the apartments above and behind the storefronts, it makes me sad to think that they have lost every worldly possession, and have no homes in the middle of bitterest part of winter to boot. I saw one woman on TV who said she doesn't know what she's lost because she hasn't been back to check to see what she can salvage. She must still be in shock or denial because, trust me, there is nothing to salvage. You can see that from the TV reports, and passing by it again this morning just confirmed that for me.

I'd like to take a few more photos before they demolish the site, which is what I understand they're planning to do this weekend.