Donations still needed after fire forces dozens from apartment building
Posted Jan 3, 2012 05:25:22 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Halifax fire officials have wrapped up the investigation into a fire that caused major damage to a Dartmouth apartment building on New Year’s Eve, but no details on the cause of the blaze have been released.
Platoon Chief Scott Shaffner told The Chronicle Herald no new information on what started the fire at 25 Arthur Street is being released after investigators concluded their work on Sunday.
The building has been handed over to the owners, and a spokesperson for Urchin Property Management Inc., says insurers will now begin a survey of the building to determine whether it can be restored or needs to be razed and rebuilt.
More than 70 people were forced from the four-storey building when the fire started around the noon hour on Dec. 31.
Although some residents have now been able to retrieve items, no one is being allowed to permanently return to the building at this time.
“Both of our school books were lost. All of what we pretty much own because everything was pretty close to the ground and there was about four, five, six inches of water. All of our furniture has pretty much fallen apart,” tenant Gill Yould told Global News.
“We’re lucky that we had insurance,” Yould added. “We are lucky that we got out alive and that the cat is okay. So, we are very, very lucky.”
The owners said a firewall helped to prevent the spread of the fire from one part of the building to the other.
“I consider myself very lucky. My unit is relatively unscathed. I know a lot of people lost every single little thing that they had. I guess my outlook is, nobody got hurt,” tenant Kerry Alemdar told Global News. “My heart goes out to the people who did lose everything in here.”
The company is working to find vacancies in its other buildings to help those who have been permanently displaced.
Also, Urchin Property Management will not be cashing January rent cheques and it is expediting the return of damage deposits for those who lived in the west end of the four-storey building where the heaviest damage occurred.
The Canadian Red Cross is reminding that it is funded by financial donations to its Canadian disaster relief fund and that it is seeking financial donation for the displace tenants.
The Salvation Army Thrift Store on Wyse Road in Dartmouth is also accepting donations of cash, clothing or household items that are in good working order to assist tenants.
