{"id":565432,"date":"2026-03-28T00:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T00:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/565432\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T00:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T00:09:08","slug":"explosion-on-roof-of-downtown-toronto-building-caught-on-camera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/565432\/","title":{"rendered":"Explosion on roof of downtown Toronto building caught on camera"},"content":{"rendered":"

Watch as an explosion erupts while crews battle a rooftop fire in downtown Toronto on Friday evening. <\/p>\n

Video from Chopper 24 captured an explosion on the roof of a downtown Toronto building where a fire broke out on Friday night.<\/p>\n

Toronto Fire Services (TFS) said crews were called to 296 Richmond St. W. just after 6 p.m. and confirmed an active blaze when they arrived.<\/p>\n

Images captured by Chopper 24 showed intense flames and thick black smoke billowing from the roof of the six-storey commercial building, which police said was under construction.<\/p>\n

At one point, Chopper 24 caught an explosion, with huge flames shooting toward the sky.<\/p>\n

\"\"Downtown Toronto fire A large fire is seen on the roof of a downtown Toronto building on Friday, March 27, 2026. (Chopper 24) <\/p>\n

\u201cInformation received that items are possibly exploding and debris may be falling onto the street below,\u201d police said in a post on social media.<\/p>\n

Crews have since extinguished the fire. TFS said up to three propane cylinders were involved in the fire.<\/p>\n

TFS said they completed a search and no injuries were reported.<\/p>\n

\u2018Earth-shattering bangs\u2019<\/p>\n

Author Julie Mannell had just sat down in a restaurant located on the ground floor of the adjacent building to celebrate the release of an excerpt of her book when she saw fire trucks arriving.<\/p>\n

She recalled hearing a restaurant staff member saying that a roof was on fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen suddenly there are these earth-shattering bangs and the building shakes, and there are a few of them,\u201d Mannell told CP24.com. In a video she shared, a thunderous bang is heard as the windows of the restaurant rattle.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sounded like the explosions were coming from upstairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Downtown Toronto roof fire A fire is seen on the roof of a building on Richmond Street West on Friday, March 27, 2026. <\/p>\n

She looked around, and everyone didn\u2019t know what to do, Mannell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then there was this feeling of like, how serious is this? And then it just slowly became more obvious that something indeed was happening, but we didn\u2019t know what,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Shortly after, Mannell left the restaurant and saw the commotion outside. She said she could smell smoke while walking on the street.<\/p>\n

The cause, origin and circumstances of the fire are unknown.<\/p>\n

Richmond Street West was closed between Peter and Duncan Streets due to the fire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watch as an explosion erupts while crews battle a rooftop fire in downtown Toronto on Friday evening. Video…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[712,49,48,44],"class_list":["post-565432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-apple-news","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}