Fire near Montreal's Bell Centre forces evacuations
A fire in a building at the intersection of St-Antoine and de la Montagne streets forced evacuations and road closures in Montreal's downtown core early this morning.
The area has since been reopened to traffic.
At one point, there were 100 firefighters on the scene trying to put out the flames.
The three-alarm fire began around 5:30 a.m. on the second-floor of an abandoned building across from the Bell Centre and the Lucien l'Allier Metro station. The flames quickly spread to the adjacent building.
People squatting inside the building where the fire started were evacuated from the premises, said Francis Leduc, the fire department's head of operations. No one was injured.
The fire department will investigate in order to determine the cause of the flames, he said. It is too early to say if the fire is of a criminal nature.
