Five-alarm blaze at 235 Gosford in North York kills one man, displaces 700 residents

Frantic residents of a North York highrise watched in horror as a man tried in vain to escape from his burning apartment.

Daniela Viana painted a picture of Friday’s deadly five-alarm blaze at 235 Gosford Blvd. — near Jane St. and Steeles Ave. W. — that spread to apartments on several floors and sent residents fleeing for their lives.

“We heard sirens and then maybe five minutes later the man came out onto his balcony — and everyone was screaming ‘jump, jump’ or ‘go to the side,’” Viana recalled Saturday.

“It was terrible, terrible,” she added.

Viana was at home with two younger brothers in her family’s apartment on the ninth floor when alarm bells started ringing around 5 p.m. They thought it was a false alarm until they smelled smoke.

“We went out (of our apartment) and when we opened the stairwell it was completely black smoke,” said Viana. “From there we covered our mouths and went downstairs.”

People were milling about outside the building, wondering where the fire was, until they walked around to the rear of the building and spotted the flames and black smoke spewing from an apartment.

Richard Derstroff, of the Office of the Fire Marshal, surveyed the scene Saturday morning and said the fire originated in apartment 808 but the cause was not immediately known.

“During our initial assessment of the scene a victim was found on the balcony,“ he said.

“We will document the interior of the scene today and the victim will be removed later this evening and hopefully a post-mortem (will be conducted) sometime tomorrow,” said Derstroff. “We will be looking at all possible ignition sequences.”

Toronto firefighters remained at the scene all day as residents returned to see if they could gain access to the building to retrieve personal belongings from their homes.

Firefighters and OFM investigators could be seen around noon moving burnt debris around on a charred balcony and unfurling an orange blanket — possibly covering the victim’s remains.

Armando Odorico arrived home about half an hour before the building’s alarm system went off, but he said he didn’t think too much of it.

“That was until I smelled the smoke and it came up over the balcony. Then I started to see serious smoke come into the apartment and that when I decided that was it,” said Odorico, who fled with his eight-year-old Dalamatian Dionysius.

Odorico, who is staying at his brother’s place for now, is among about 700 people displaced by the blaze.

A nearby recreation centre was housing some residents and the Red Cross had been called in to provide help.
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