Toronto’s fire chief says a blaze at a downtown building on Wednesday morning marks the third battery-related blaze in the city in the past 24 hours.
Three people were injured in the fire, which broke out shortly before 6 a.m. at a building on George Street, near Dundas and Jarvis streets.
The fire, which involved lithium-ion batteries, was subsequently knocked down.
Three people were hospitalized, including one who suffered burns and two others who were treated for smoke inhalation.
Speaking to CP24 on Wednesday morning, Toronto Fire Chief Jim Jessop said the unit of origin had upwards of 10 e-bikes and mobile devices inside.
He added that there have been three fires in the last 24 hours involving lithium-ion batteries, including a blaze in Etobicoke and another that destroyed a home in Scarborough on Tuesday.
‘Evolving fire safety risk’
“We need regulatory changes... the batteries that are sold in Canada are not regulated, and they are not required to meet a standard,” he said.
“They are the primary reason why we have seen a well over 200 per cent increase in fires in the last number of years.”
He called the battery fires the “greatest evolving fire safety risk in Canada’s largest city.”
Jessop noted that they have seen batteries previously involved in fires that were safely stored by Toronto Fire reignite six to eight weeks later.
“The biggest thing that the City of Toronto has been asking for, and we will continue to ask for, is we need the federal government to come to the table to work collaboratively with us, and we need the Fire Marshal’s Office of Ontario to work with us to look at potential amendments to the fire code,” he said.
Jessop said that fires related to lithium-ion batteries are posing additional health risks to firefighters.
“The risks from the carcinogens and the exposure to the firefighters is a lot different than in what we would deem normal house fires. To the point where we now are looking at new technologies and how to actually clean the bunker gear, because the normal way of using our extractors is not removing the carcinogens in the heavy metals,” he said.
“We know these devices are not going anywhere. We’re not calling for a ban, but what we are calling for is both the federal government and the provincial government to work collaboratively with us to limit the probability and the consequence of these fires.”
