Old railroad facility filled with paper and cardboard burns in Montreal and few are surprised

A total of 125 firefighters were called in to extinguish the blaze, but flames were still visible 18 hours later, and a thick column of smoke continued to billow out of one end of the building.

Ash from the fire rained down on the neighbourhoods surrounding the derelict building in Montreal’s industrial Pointe St. Charles.

Firefighters were first alerted to the fire in the former CN rail yards at around 2 a.m. local time Saturday. Montreal Fire Division Chief Benoit Fleury said the five-alarm blaze spread fast, and there appeared to be a lot of paper inside the building at the time.

“Fortunately, it didn’t spread to the neighbouring buildings on either side,” Fleury said, adding they were unable to determine how the fire started.

Fleury said it appeared no one was inside the building at the time and none of the homes across the street from it had to be evacuated.

Area residents called the building an accident waiting to happen.

“Questions started being raised regularly by residents,” said Lisa Ferland, a local resident and activist. “They wanted to know what going on in these warehouses. . . . According to us, it did not seem safe. They were keeping paper in a building with no security measures and it was close to houses.”