No injuries reported after electrical fire spread through west-end Toronto apartment building

No injuries have been reported following a 5-alarm electrical fire that spread through an apartment building in Toronto’s west end on Sunday afternoon.

Shortly after 2 p.m., Toronto Fire Services (TFS) were called to 357 Rusholme Road, a 16-storey residential building in the Bloor Street West and Dovercourt Road area, according to Deputy Fire Chief Jim Jessop.

“TFS was met with a serious electrical fire throughout the building that was generating and producing a large volume and quantity of smoke. The fire was quickly escalated up, and at its height, we were operating at a fifth alarm,” Jessop told reporters at the scene.

“I'm happy to report there are no injuries at this time that have been reported to us and as you can see from behind me, the TFS is starting to clear a number of apparatus and we're downsizing the event.”

The building is without power for the time being, Jessop said, but Toronto Hydro is on site and is working to determine the status of the building’s electrical systems.

Jessop said that following the arrival of TFS crews, the incident commander made the decision to shelter residents in their units rather than evacuate the building, due to the large volume of smoke in the stairwells and hallways.

“TFS continues to ventilate the building and we continue to do door-to-door welfare checks on all of those individuals in the building,” he said.

“This was a significant fire and the women and men of TFS did an absolutely outstanding job extinguishing the fire and ventilating the smoke and making sure that, as of right now, given the type of fire we had, their efforts have resulted in not one injury being reported to us.”

Initial reports suggested the fire may have been caused by an explosion in the building’s electrical room, however Jessop said he couldn’t confirm the detail.

“I heard similar reports when I was notified of this fire,” he said. “I did hear the reports of that but that will be confirmed during the investigation.”

TFS has opened their own investigation into the incident, and the office of the Ontario Fire Marshal has been notified.