Crews battle two fires with zero visibility conditions in Ottawa

Firefighters tackled two fires in the early morning on Tuesday that saw zero visibility conditions due to heavy smoke.

The first incident was 1:19 a.m. for a fire in the basement of a convenience store with a residential unit on top in the 300 block of Shakespeare Street in the Vanier North neighbourhood. Crews arrived within 3 minutes and saw smoke coming from the building.

They cut the bars to the windows of the business to get inside where they couldn’t see anything through the thick smoke.

Making their way to the basement, crews found flames coming from the ceiling and started removing parts of the drywall to extinguish the joist spaces, a post on X reads.

Another crew searched the business and the apartment above and did not find anyone. The residents who evacuated were staying in an OC Transpo bus while firefighters dealt with the situation.

By 3:04 a.m. two full searches were done of the building and the flames were extinguished. Fans were used to get rid of the lasting smoke. The people who lived above the business were displaced.

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The second call for fire came at 2:52 a.m. just as crews were wrapping up the first.

“Neighbour outside yelling to call the fire department, the house is on fire,” a media release reads.

A caller said their neighbour’s house was on fire in the 1400 block of Briarfield Crescent in Orleans. When at the home, firefighters met with residents who reported the smoke coming from the two-storey end-townhome.

Once inside, crews were met with yet again no visibility, battling through the thick smoke to find the flames before they could spread to the rest of the house.

This fire was over 11 minutes after officials arrived on scene.

Smoke wafted out of the building and the attached unit. The fire displaced those living in the end unit.

In both incidents an Ottawa fire investigator was dispatched to the scene.