Fairview apartment fire started by super’s soldering
Posted Dec 29, 2011 05:37:01 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A soldering torch set off last night’s apartment fire in Fairview.
Halifax Fire says the superintendent was replacing a valve under the sink in apartment 103, and ignited the paper on the insulation inside the wall.
Forty people were in the building at 15 Mandaville Court. The fire caused $400-thousand in damage.
Firefighters were called the 24-unit building around 5:30pm Wednesday for a report of fire in the walls.
“The call originally came in as a fire in the wall, off the first floor,” platoon chief Gary McCurdy told Global News. “It extended up the wall of the first floor into the floor and ceiling in the second and then again up the wall and into the third. It’s also gone down the length of the hallway on the second floor.”
Some tenants watched from the remote safety of a Metro Transit bus, provided to keep residents out of the driving wind and rain.
McCurdy told the Chronicle Herald none of the residents will be able to return to the building until repair work has been done. About half of the units are said to be damaged.
The Canadian Red Cross has been called in to help tenants having to relocate temporarily as a result of the fire. There were no injuries reported.
