Fire Services investigating Cochrane Street house fire

Greater Sudbury Fire Services will likely call in the Office of the Fire Marshal to help determine the cause of a house fire on Cochrane Street, said platoon chief Terry Larocque.

Cochrane Street was closed to traffic June 22 at about 10:20 a.m. to allow firefighters to douse the flames of the fire.

The building contained two apartments, Larocque said. Residents of basement apartment were home when the fire broke out in the apartment above them. They were alerted to the fire by a passerby.

“The house was fully involved when firefighters first arrived on scene,” said Larocque. `Primary and secondary searches are all clear, which means there was no one else in the building. As far as a cause, we haven't determined that yet, and we'll likely be calling in the OFM to determine a cause.
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Neither of the two tenants were injured. No smoke reached the basement apartment, so the smoke alarm would not have went off, Larocque said.

“If the passerby had not alerted the tenants, who knows what would have happened, but everyone is safe and sound,” he said. “It's warm today, which made it a little more difficult to fight the fire, but the crews did a good job and knocked it out quickly. We're just ventilating now and looking for hotspots.

Cochrane Street resident Rob Gurlitz was sleeping when sirens woke him up at about 10 a.m.

“I heard 'Grab the hose,' so I came out to see what was going on,” he said, as he watched firefighters open a hole in the building's roof to ventilate heat and smoke out of the home, and to ensure the fire hadn't spread to the attic. “I couldn't see any flames, but there was lots of smoke. I feel bad for the people who live there, because it looks like the house is finished.”