Tenant questions response to Elora fire, first responders say smoke alarm was disabled

One tenant says he was still sleeping in apartment half an hour after crews were called to his building to put out a fire. He tells CTV’s Krista Simpson his sto

A tenant is questioning what happened after he was left in an Elora building while the fire department battled a blaze.

The fire started on Metcalfe Street around 1 a.m. on Saturday.

While first responders rushed to the scene to try to extinguish the flames, one tenant was still asleep in his second-floor unit.

“I was woken up by my dog and [the] smoke about 1:30 a.m. – 1:35 a.m.,” Trevor Wedgewood told CTV News.

He said that was half an hour after firefighters were called to the property.

“It’s mind boggling that nobody knocked on my door,” Wedgewood added.

The building contains a business and several residential units, many of which are used as short-term Airbnb rentals. Wedgewood’s unit is not a short-term rental.

At the time of the fire, 12 people were inside the building, but no one was hurt.

“Fire crews responded quickly and did an exceptional job of knocking the fire down and containing it to just one rental unit and an adjacent supply room,” said Centre Wellington Fire’s Deputy Chief Jason Benn.

Jonathan Karn, another deputy fire chief, said their first priority was to put the flames out and prevent them from spreading through the building. Then, crews began searching the units, starting with the areas closest to the fire.

“We did search all the units after that, and in between us getting to [Wedgewood’s] unit, that person had self-evacuated,” Karn explained.

Benn also noted all of the smoke alarms in the building were working, except one.

“The alarm had been intentionally disabled by a tenant taking off the wiring base and the battery was removed,” he said.

Wedgewood did not dispute the claim.

“I’m not going to argue with what the fire inspector has said, or the fire chief has said,” he told CTV News. “Let’s not focus on one unit. Let’s focus on every unit because that’s where I think we’re going to find out just how good the fire suppression equipment, alarms, lights, fire extinguishers [are]. I think that’s how we’ll find out just how fire safe the building is.”

Officials have not said what sparked the fire, but they did confirm it started in one of the short-term rental units.

“It was an Airbnb unit. They had four people in it,” Karn said. “They’d seen the fire start and they were alerted to it by sight and attempted to extinguish [it], but the rate of growth – they then evacuated the building.”

Firefighters faced several challenges while trying to douse the flames, including the age of the building, its proximity to others and the number of renovations to the property over the years.

“The estimated damage at this point is between $1 million and $1.2 million, conservatively,” Benn said.

Fire officials said the incident serves as an important reminder to always have working smoke alarms.

“Never disable a smoke alarm. Test the smoke alarms monthly by pressing the test button. Replace the batteries at least once a year and your alarms every 10 years or earlier,” Benn advised.

Meanwhile, Wedgewood said he is grateful his dog, Rosie, was there.

“I’m lucky I got out. Let’s not be hyperbolic about it. It was pretty damn scary.”