Hazmat, Edmonton firefighters battle blaze at Parkdale apartment

Fire crews, including a hazardous material team, fought an apartment fire near 112 Avenue and 86 Street Friday morning.

“It was just a lot of smoke and flames and then the fire trucks showed up,” neighbour Tim McKenzie said. “Wow, the place is a write-off.”

“When they broke the windows, [flames] were coming out the windows, probably eight feet high.”

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Edmonton Fire Rescue Services was called at 8:54 a.m.

“We initiated a quick exterior attack to try and knock things down so that we could get inside,” District Chief Greg Winter said. “We engaged in an interior attack after that.”

“After they knocked the flames down on the outside, the smoke colour changed. It gets loaded with different colours and those colours represent fuels in the smoke,” Winter explained. “It was a very yellow, grey looking smoke – heavy, thick smoke – so we were concerned about the toxic smoke and possibly affecting neighbouring residents so we called our hazmat team to come and set up their area raids which assess air quality. Once they were able to get that set up, they confirmed that air quality at this time is good.”

Those who lived in the building weren’t hurt but were unaccounted for, he added.

“At this point, the investigators are inside just trying to observe the fire-affected areas and see if they can pin-point a cause and location, a point of origin.”

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Edmonton police said they had not been called out to investigate.

Winter said the building was a five-suite apartment but two or three units were not occupied.

A title search shows the building is owned by Tasneem Gohar, wife of inner-city landlord Carmen Pervez, and by Jennifer Vuong, who was charged along with Pervez in a drug bust in March.

READ MORE: Bail denied for controversial Edmonton landlord facing more charges 

One neighbour said residents have complained to the city about the property numerous times since 2014.

“There have been stolen cars in the alley; they have been disruptive to neighbours, multiple criminal issues, police responses, ambulance responses … a whole bunch of issues,” Cris Basualdo said.

She said the property was reported to the city back in February 2014 and the neighbours have been reporting “various other issues” since then on an ongoing basis.