'Dangerously high levels of carbon monoxide' brought to safe levels in Little Italy building

Ottawa Fire Services says all residents of the little Italy building that had dangerously high levels of carbon monoxide (CO) Tuesday afternoon have returned to their units. (Ottawa Fire Services/ X)

Ottawa Fire Services says all residents of the little Italy building that had dangerously high levels of carbon monoxide (CO) Tuesday afternoon have returned to their units.

Firefighters say they received a call at 1:51 p.m. reporting that a carbon monoxide (CO) alarm was going off in their first floor apartment in a three-storey building located in the 100 block of Beech Street. The caller also reported there was an odour of vehicle exhaust coming from the underground parking garage, crews add.

When firefighters arrived and started reading the levels of CO, they detected 60 parts per million (PPM) in the front entrance of the building. That was when they put on their protective equipment and self-breathing apparatus and entered the underground parking garage. In the garage, they found three workers operating two “gas powered pressure washers” and detected 400 PPM of CO, crews add.

Crews say they immediately brought the workers outside.

Then they went to the first and second floor where the CO levels read 25 PPM in the hallways and 30-45 PPM inside the units.

When they proceeded to the third floor, their readings showed 5-10 PPM.

Crews then evacuated the entire building that houses 30 residents. They stayed inside an OC Transpo bus until it was safe to go back to their units, firefighters say.

Ottawa fire say crews used high pressurized fans to ventilate the building and continued to monitor the air quality until it became safe for residents to return to their units.

The manager of the building was also called to the scene to give firefights the keys of every unit to make sure the air quality is safe.

Residents safely returned to their units around 6:07 p.m..