Fire crews battled an industrial blaze in the Port Weller East area of St. Catharines after multiple explosions rocked nearby residents Thursday morning.
St. Catharines’ fire chief says the blaze started just after 6:30 a.m. at a hazardous materials company, Ssonix Products, on Keefer Road not far from Seaway Haulage Road.
The blaze forced authorities to evacuate around 50 people from nearby homes and businesses to the Kiwanis Aquatics location on Carlton Street.
Chief Dave Upper said flames extended to a neighbouring building but in all the fire was contained in about three hours.
One person, a staff member at Ssonix, was taken to hospital with burn injuries, according to Upper.
He anticipates a hazardous materials team will be on scene for much of Thursday attempting to stop run off from flowing into Lake Ontario.
The team has a boat in the lake which deployed an absorbent sock as well a vacuum truck is removing runoff into the water system.
St. Catharines’ fire chief says the blaze started just after 6:30 a.m. at a hazardous materials company, Ssonix Products, on Keefer Road not far from Seaway Haulage Road.
Upper said the building contained mainly ‘paint-type chemicals’ which is believed to be the ‘main piece of the fire.’
“We do know now that there are two other sections that have not been involved,” he said during an afternoon update.
“There’s a lot of aerosols in the one section of the building, and then on the other section of the building, there’s another chemical that we’re looking to take care of.”
Ontario’s Ministry of the Environment is on scene monitoring suppression of the hazardous materials.
“They are now doing the air quality monitoring, which has been super helpful to know over how our atmosphere is and what we’re working in,” Upper explained.
Roads accessing Seaway Haulage and Keefer Roads were closed until just after 4 p.m.
Authorities are hoping to allow evacuees back to their residences late Thursday afternoon.
The office of the fire marshal and Ministry of Labour have been notified of the incident.
The cause of the blaze has not been ascertained but Upper did say there was an ‘initial catalyst’ that caused the explosions, reportedly heard by residents several kilometres away.
“What we had for the first hour was a large number of aerosols that were exploding, and that was the continuous fireworks, so to speak,” Upper explained.