The cause of Saturday night’s “stubborn” blaze at an Orillia four-plex is still under investigation.
“The fire marshal has finished his on-site investigation, in cooperation with the OPP, but they are still doing some interviews, so right now (the cause is) undetermined until he completes all of that,” said Brent Thomas, the Orillia Fire Department’s assistant fire chief. He was unable to say if the fire was suspicious.
Fire erupted in a back unit of the brick building at 351 Atherley Road at about 11:15 p.m. Saturday night. There were several people in the building at the time, but, thankfully, there were no injuries. However, all of its tenants have been homeless since then.
Orillia’s deputy fire chief, Jeff Kirk, told OrilliaMatters he estimates damage to the building at about $150,000. He said more than a dozen firefighters were on the scene until about 5 a.m. Sunday morning.
“There is extensive damage to the ‘fire apartment’ and a lot of secondary damage,” said Kirk. “We had a terrible time because the fire got into the attic, so we had to do some cutting of the roof.”
Now that the fire marshal’s on-site probe is complete, the building has been turned back over to its owners, said Thomas. Because there was fire separation between the units, the damage was mostly contained; Thomas said he expects some of the tenants will be able to move back in as soon as utilities and services are reconnected.
Fire marshal officials are hoping to provide a further update by Wednesday.
