The head of the Montreal firefighters’ union says his members weren’t able to immediately respond to a fire Friday morning in Notre-Dame-de-Grace — even though the nearest fire station was three minutes away. According to Chris Ross, president of the Association des Pompiers de Montréal, the firefighters at fire station 77 had a truck ready to go but the personal protective equipment (PPE) they had was expired and could no longer be used as it was more than 10 years old. “Simply, we have no gear left that is clean and decontaminated to give to them. They know it happens on a daily basis,” he told CTV News. The fire at the four-storey apartment building near the Montreal West train station, close to the intersection of Westmore Avenue and St-Jacques Street, quickly escalated to a fifth alarm — the highest classification for a fire. Two firefighters and one civilian suffered minor injuries. After verifying the response time, Ross told CTV News that the Montreal fire department (SIM) rushed over some PPE to fire station 77, located at 114 Westminster Ave. North, and the firefighters there were finally deployed to the fire about 30 minutes after the blaze started, on the fourth alarm. The first truck to arrive had come from another station, likely further away, he said. “They’re going to [take] a little bit longer. And when your house is on fire, a little bit longer can seem like an eternity,” he said. “It was a prime example of the real-life impact of having problems with our personal protective equipment. And you know the impact of when those fire trucks are out of service.” In a statement, the SIM said that at the beginning of every shift, staff are responsible for checking their PPE and reporting any issues to their supervisor, which is what happened at Station 77 on Friday morning. “As happens every day, trucks may be unavailable or outside their immediate territory due to training, replacement, lack of equipment, equipment failure or simply because they are responding to a call,” the SIM said. The Montreal fire department added that for that reason it continuously monitors territorial coverage and can, when necessary, move trucks to meet the requirements of the risk coverage plan set out by the Ministry of Public Security. “Regarding the building on Westmore Street, the first pumper truck was on scene within five minutes of the call being received by the SIM, and we had 18 firefighters on site within 10 minutes, while the standard requires 11 firefighters in 10 minutes for this type of building.” CTV News reached out to the City of Montreal for comment on Friday but did not receive a response before publication time. Equipment issue raised in recent auditor general report The head of the association said it’s a problem that has been ongoing since the start of the year. The lack of proper PPE was flagged in the city’s auditor general report issued just last week. AG Andrée Cossette’s lengthy report for 2024 revealed problems with poor inventory tracking, non-compliant equipment and a lack of gear that put firefighters’ health and safety at risk. Ross said Friday the NDG fire was a clear example of the problem, one that firefighters are all too familiar with. “[In] June, earlier this summer, we had periods with 20, 25 firetrucks out of service at the same time for absolutely no reason, other than we don’t have gear,” he said. “Some days, we have trucks out of service for the entire 24 hour shift because we don’t have gear.” Following the release of the auditor general’s report, Richard Liebmann, chief of Montreal’s fire department, said in an interview that the SIM had acknowledged the problem before the report was released and that improvements had already been implemented, including upgrades to its tracking system and improving the capacity for washing uniforms. He also said Montreal invested more than $6 million in 2025 to buy more bunker gear, helmets, gloves, and boots.
