THUNDER BAY – NEWS – Thunder Bay Fire Rescue responded to an early morning call at Bertrand Court. At approximately 04:20 am on the morning of Jan. 21, 2020 Thunder Bay Fire dispatch received a fire alarm for Bertrand Court in addition to several 911 calls reporting smoke in the halls of Bertrand Court.
A second alarm was ordered by the first arriving fire unit. Fire crews immediately encountered people evacuating the structure due to heavy smoke in the main floor hallway of the building.
The initial TBFR incident commander ordered an aggressive interior attack, with firefighters extending an attack hose line directly to an apartment unit that was fully involved with an advancing contents fire. Firefighting efforts were complicated by the fact that hallways were also occupied with evacuating tenants of the building. As additional arriving crews worked to evacuate occupants from the building, firefighters were able to confine and extinguish the apartment fire quickly. Crews also utilized positive pressure ventilation procedures to quickly exhaust the heavy smoke condition that had filled hallways.
One building tenant was removed from the structure and transferred to EMS who transported the person to the hospital for treatment. The victim’s status remained unknown at the time of this report.
TBFR remains on the scene as fire investigators work to determine the cause of the fire.
This fire is one of several incidents over the past few days involving fire victims being rescued or evacuated by Thunder Bay Fire Fighters. Building owners and residents are reminded of the importance of having working smoke detectors as an early alert for building occupants.
