Kenora Ave Blaze

Local businesses housed in Hamilton’s east end are scrambling to pick up loose ends after a massive fire tore through a building.

Fire crews rushed to the multiple-alarm fire at an industrial building at around 8:30 last night. The building housed five separate businesses and some employees arriving to their early-morning shifts were quickly turned away,

While some left, others waited outside until the fire was gone.

Once day broke you could see that parts of the roof collapsed and the inside of the garage was charred. The Ministry of the Environment was on scene to cleanup the mess.

Hamilton Fire told CHCH that they believe the blaze started where someone was using a cutting torch on a vehicles exhaust. The vehicle suddenly caught fire and sparked te massive blaze that the fire department say resulted in damages over $850 000.

A man in his 20’s was sent to hospital with burns on his hands. No one else was injured.

The fire reportedly started and gutted most of the the Service 1 Truck and Trailer Repair shop. The owner of the business was on site but didn’t want to speak on camera. But surrounding businesses said they could be out of commission for months.

“Very had to see what happened to Service 1, it’s a very unfortunate accident. We do believe they’ll be back on their feet in a couple months, but we are a customer of theirs and we’ll have to go elsewhere until they’re back up in business.”

While Service 1 will be out of service, other affected businesses are forced to adapt. A restoration company just moved into the building and their new equipment sustained some smoke damage. They’ll team up with another company to continue operations.

About 1000 surrounding homes were left without power as crews battled the fire. Electricity was eventually brought back.