A two-storey building in downtown Montreal collapsed Monday afternoon after a fire sent flames and thick smoke billowing across the neighbourhood, forcing evacuations and prompting an arson investigation. <\/p>\n
Dozens of firefighters battled the blaze, which firefighters at the scene said began around 1 p.m. at the intersection of St-Laurent Blvd. and Milton St. as a large amount of smoke ballooned and degraded air quality in the area.<\/p>\n
Video footage shared on social media showed intense flames engulfing the building before the collapse.<\/p>\n
By 3 p.m., the structure \u2014 believed to be an abandoned building \u2014 had given way onto the sidewalk and the flames had subdued. About 15 minutes later, the Montreal fire department said the fire was under control.<\/p>\n
Police moved to close off surrounding streets. Traffic was also shut down within a perimeter bounded by Ontario, St-Dominique, Prince Arthur and St-Urbain Sts.<\/p>\n
One police officer told The Canadian Press the area would remain closed for \u201cat least two or three hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
A dozen residents from neighbouring buildings were forced to leave as a precaution, according to Caroline Ch\u00e8vrefils, a spokesperson for the Montreal police.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the police arrived at the scene, the fire department was already responding,\u201d she said. \u201cThe cause and the circumstances surrounding this fire are currently unknown.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ch\u00e8vrefils confirmed the building was vacant. <\/p>\n
No incendiary object was found at the scene, she said. The case has been transferred to the Montreal police arson unit.<\/p>\n
Investigators are expected to return Tuesday to examine the site and determine what caused the blaze.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome verification will be made to locate possible surveillance cameras nearby the scene, and the investigation is ongoing,\u201d Ch\u00e8vrefils said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A two-storey building in downtown Montreal collapsed Monday afternoon after a fire sent flames and thick smoke billowing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,2338],"class_list":["post-586640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586640","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=586640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}