Traffic along McIntyre Street was blocked off at John Street up to Fisher Street as fire crews worked to put out a fire on the third floor of a rooming house around 4:45 this afternoon.
When crews arrived they saw a fire in the third story of an old building that had been converted into apartments.
“There was heavy smoke showing, and crews immediately began a positive pressure attack and began search and rescue and attacking the fire,” stated Fire Chief Jason Whiteley.
Some area residents helped the Fire Department by helping knock on the apartment doors on the lower floors to get the tenants out of the building.
He says the damage appears to be contained to the third floor.
“We used the aerial ladder and the roof needed to be opened on the top floor of the building to make sure there was no more extension into the attic so there is a hole in the roof and pretty good fire damage on the third floor,” added Whiteley.
He believes the fire has left four to six tenants homeless.
See: Victims Of Fires Donation Page North Bay Ontario
No one was seriously injured but some were attended to by paramedics as they were treated for smoke inhalation.
Whiteley says it is too early to determine the cause of the fire but Fire Prevention will be looking into the cause.
The fire occurred around the same time most of downtown was without power due to an outage. The two incidents do not appear connected.
