51-year-old charged with arson after major Belleville fire: police

Belleville, Ont., police have charged a man with arson following a massive fire in the city.

The fire broke out at Thrasher’s Garden Centre on North Front Street Sunday evening.

Monday morning, Belleville police said they arrested a 51- year-old man of no fixed address and charged him with arson and two counts of breaching his probation in relation to the fire.

Acting deputy fire chief Mark Shannon said the quick actions of local firefighters averted a crisis.

He said the fire began in the store and, due to many renovations over the years, it was very hard to contain. The building was blocked off into several sections, which were difficult to break into to put out the fire. He says there were also multiple roofs built one on top of the other, which also made it difficult to extinguish the fire.

The real danger, Shannon said, was keeping the fire away from the attached warehouse, which contained a large amount of fertilizers.

Shannon said fire crews had to bring in an excavator to demolish the store in order to ensure that the flames wouldn’t spread to the warehouse. The fire was determined over at 2:18 a.m. Monday.

Although Shannon said details of the fire are still under investigation, he says damage to the building will be in the hundreds of thousands.

The intersection of North Front and Harriett streets is still closed pending further investigation by both police and the Ontario fire marshal’s office, police said.