"Police tells residents to stay inside homes for safety
June 12, 2009
Dana Brown
The Hamilton Spectator
A thick layer of dark grey smoke lingered over part of the southeast Mountain tonight, after a choking blaze forced people off the street and into their homes for safety.
Emergency crews were called to Team Hazco, an environmental services company, on Upper Ottawa Street near Rymal Road around 8 p.m. The company’s website said it is often “considered the Navy Seals of hazardous materials work.”
The blaze grew quickly, with people in the area reporting multiple explosions and police warning people to get off the street in case the smoke was toxic.
After nearly an hour of the fire burning, police went knocking door to door at homes to the west of the blaze, apparently in an attempt to evacuate nearby residents.
Roads surrounding the fire scene, including Rymal and Upper Ottawa, were closed by police who wore both thin, white protective masks, and respirators or gas masks.
It was not known what was burning inside the building, but people who watched the fire reported multi-coloured flames.
Teresa Buch, 38, was driving with her husband near Garth Street when they saw smoke from the fire and decided to head for the scene to take a look.
Buch said when she approached, she heard an explosion.
'It was just like the flames going up into the air (with) the smoke,' she said, noting that she saw blue and orange.
Andy Saxton, who lives five minutes from the scene, came over after hearing an estimated six explosions.
And Desiree Bohonis, 49, and her husband were outside their home nearby when he saw smoke and the pair decided to walk over.
Bohonis said her husband heard one explosion that sounded like a pop. The pair then heard another as they made got closer and a third when they arrived.
'It was fired up,' she said, describing the scene as being ' pretty black.'
Bohonis said there was colour at the bottom of the flame she saw, but it cleared up as it went up into the air. She said smoke was turning from grey to green.
Throngs of people gathered on a grassy hill on Rymal Road from which the flaming building could be seen.
Several fire trucks equipment were visible pouring water from above the rounded building, which appeared to have a partially burned white roof covering.
The smoke appeared to flow more towards the east than the west."
oh if ONLY i had pictures of this, you guys should have seen it!
rundown for ya, i was on the laptop, on youtubem and i heard sirens, i thought it was just a minor fire somewhere up here, but when i look out the window to the left, what do i see? black smoke...BLACK!
so i go out to look, and theres this metal and plastic shelter on fire, you should have seen the thing, the plastic...tarp i think it was... was literally burning away, the smoke was black, then purple, then some green-yellow-orangey color, there was this HUGE fireball than when it went up, you could FEEL the heat blast off of it. im pretty sure there will be videos on youtube about it sometime this weekend or next week. if i had the camera id have a vid up right now.
and the sentence: "Throngs of people gathered on a grassy hill on Rymal Road from which the flaming building could be seen."
THIS is an understatement, there were people, traffic was backed up due to people stopping/slowing down to watch, i was in that crowd, so i should know what im talking about.
theres still police cars outside, i can see one out this window.
thespec.com/News/BreakingNews/…not as big as the toronto propane explosions, but pretty big story