One seriously injured after St. Catharines explosion, fire at industrial facility

Dave Upper, City of St. Catharines Fire Chief and Director of Fire Services. Photo: Dave Upper/Talent Canada

By Jessica Smith

A series of explosions and a large fire at a hazardous waste facility in St. Catharines, Ont., left one person with serious injuries and triggered the evacuation of nearby homes on Thursday as crews worked to put out the large blaze.

St. Catharines Fire Services said crews responded to reports of multiple blasts at Ssonix Products 2010 Inc. just after 6:30 a.m. and found that a fire had spread to a neighbouring industrial building as well.

Chief Dave Upper said a man working at the hazardous waste facility, who was the only person there at the time, was taken to hospital with serious injuries.

“We know the patient is conscious but has received significant burns,” Upper said. “We’re still working defensively on the fire.”

A neighbourhood north of the facility was evacuated due to a “black plume” of smoke blowing toward the area, Upper said, with residents sent to a community aquatics centre.

Others in the area were advised to stay inside, keep doors and windows shut and turn off furnaces to avoid letting outside air in.

Fire crews heard multiple explosions at the facility for about 45 minutes after they arrived, Upper said. The owner of the facility was on scene and had told fire crews about various chemicals that were in the building, he said.

“We are concerned that there are some cleaning agents in the one bay and we’re trying to determine the level of the fire, how far it’s extended and our exposure to that area,” he said.

Crews are also trying to ensure run-off water from their efforts doesn’t collect in nearby Lake Ontario, Upper said, and a hazardous materials company on scene has brought in marine-containment booms.

The Ministry of Environment, the Office of the Fire Marshal, the Technical Standards and Safety Authority and a hazmat remediation team will all be responding to the fire, Upper said.

Aaron Reid, who lives in nearby Niagara Falls, Ont., said he heard blasts on Thursday morning a couple of minutes after waking up.

“I don’t know exactly what the distance is from me to where the explosion was but it’s probably in the 20-kilometre range,” said Reid, 34.

“I heard a ‘boom, boom,’ and I thought to myself ‘Oh, that’s weird.’ It almost sounded like thunder. I looked out the window and it wasn’t raining.”

It was only after Reid opened up Facebook while making coffee and saw reports of explosions in St. Catharines that he realized what he likely heard.

“I was surprised I was able to hear the explosion from that far away,” he said.

Once he got to work in nearby Virgil, Ont. — about 10 km from the facility where the blasts took place — Reid said a co- worker who lived there told him he’d also heard the blasts.

“He said it sounded like a truck had hit his house, like it woke him up from a dead sleep, just this giant boom,” said Reid, adding that his co-worker ran outside. “At that point, he could see the glow in the sky coming from the direction (of the fire).”

St. Catharines Fire said late Thursday morning that utilities Enridge and Alectra were on scene “to ensure community safety.”

Port Weller Public School in St. Catharines, which sits just over a kilometre from the fire, said it was keeping students indoors on Thursday as a precaution.

Niagara Student Transportation Services said there would be “some significant delays and route cancellations” on bus routes on Thursday as a result of the fire.