A fire that heavily damaged a building in the south end of Saint John is being treated as suspicious.
Platoon Chief Brian Wilson said fire crews were called to St. James Street at Charlotte Street around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Wilson said the first crews on the scene were met with heavy smoke coming from a multi-storey building.
“This was a vacant building, although due to the cold weather and the circumstances, we searched it anyway,” Wilson said in an interview Wednesday morning.
“We searched the building and found that there was a significant amount of fire and smoke throughout. It was hard to tell where the seed of the fire was.”
More crews were called in to help battle the fire. At one point, Wilson said every on-duty fire crew in the city was at the scene.
Firefighters also had to contend with bitter wind chill values near -30 as they fought the fire.
“That took a toll, for sure,” said Wilson. “It’s very difficult operating in cold weather. Our air packs and regulators are prone to freezing, and as soon as you get wet, there’s a lot of icing of gear.”
Wilson said the fire investigator and police were called in to conduct an initial investigation, but there is no word yet on a cause.
There was a fire in the same building back in June 2020. One person was taken to the hospital with smoke inhalation and two cats died.
That fire caused significant fire damage on the top floor and heavy water damage on the bottom floor and in the basement.
Eight people living in the building’s three units were displaced by the fire.
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