Fire at historic Halifax Armoury under control, cause being investigated

A fire has damaged the more than 125-year-old Halifax Armoury.

A fire at the historic Halifax Armoury on North Park Street closed some streets and caused a large power outage early Thursday morning.

Halifax Regional Police, Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency and the Department of National Defence (DND) Fire Department responded to the scene just after 4 a.m. following a report of heavy smoke in the building.

Halifax Fire District Chief Brad Connors says there were no visible flames when crews arrived and the fire was eventually found in between the building’s first and second floors.

“Due to the open concept mainly of the armouries, it appears that the fire had been burning for a while, so initially difficult to find the origin, but crews did a phenomenal job to find the origin of the fire and then they just started going to work to open up the floors and ceiling to get at it and start extinguishing it,” he said.

Power was turned off for about an hour to more than 2,000 customers from the north end to downtown Halifax for “public safety.”

The outage was then isolated to just the building.

Cunard Street between North Park and Maynard streets was also blocked to traffic, along with parts of North Park Street and the roundabout at Agricola and Cunard.

Halifax and military police had units directing traffic in the area until around noon.

DND says the fire is now considered under control and fire operations have ended.

The Halifax Armoury is a Classified Federal Heritage building that was built between 1895 and 1899.

DND began a two-phased $160-million project to rehabilitate the Armouries in 2017.

“It’s a very old building, so legacy construction, very heavy timbers and stuff, which really, in some ways, works in our favour and in other ways doesn’t, and it’s been renovated several times, so we’re dealing with several layers of flooring, several layers of ceiling, so it’s difficult for the firefighters to get at the fire of origin,” Connors said.

A contract was awarded for Phase 2 of the project last spring. Work is expected to be completed in 2028.

DND says no construction or renovation work was going on in the area of the armoury where the fire was found.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

The investigation is being conducted by both DND Fire Services and the Nova Scotia Office of the Fire Marshal.

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