As Newmarket prepares for more highrises, Central York firefighters train for tall building blazes

Yorkregion.com
Nov. 27, 2023

As the future development landscape of Newmarket shifts to include more highrises, Central York Fire Services firefighters are learning new techniques to battle blazes in tall buildings.

“Newmarket has grown out. The only way we’re going to grow now is grow up,” Acting Capt. Phil Montgomery said at a training exercise at a condo building under construction at 185 Deerfield Rd. near Davis and Parkside drives.

It is one of three neighbouring buildings of 10 to 15 storeys making up the Davis Residences at Bakerfield development -- two condo towers and a rental apartment building -- that will eventually house a total of 2,000 residents in 750 units.

“As the buildings start to go higher, more people, we’re going to encounter more highrise fires. We want to be on the cutting edge right now of our training so we’re prepared for more highrise buildings,” said Montgomery, who put together the business case to bring highrise fire training to Newmarket and Aurora.

He is this year’s winner of the Jim Allen Award, given annually in recognition of Central York retired fire captain Jim Allen for his contributions to fire services locally and provincially during his 37-year career.

Since the 2017 opening of a 15-storey apartment building at 212 Davis Dr., Newmarket has seen, and will see a growing number of mid and highrise developments including:

• Long-term plans by Oxford Properties Group to build residential, market-rate and affordable rental and commercial blocks ranging from two to 20 storeys, as well as parks and public space, on the Upper Canada Mall lands.

 

• St. Maurice and St. Verena Coptic Orthodox Church’s proposed 10-storey affordable housing project with 201 residential units and commercial space at 17151 Yonge St.

• Kingsley Square development made up of two condo towers at 15 storeys each at Davis and Patterson streets, currently under construction.

 

• Redwood development on the west side of Yonge Street, north of Davis Drive on the former Slessor Square site, which will include three towers at 19, 20 and 21 storeys. The site plan has been approved by the town and the project is close to receiving a building permit.

• Tentative zoning approval has been given for an eight-story building at 315 Davis Dr.

 

• Kerbel Group is planning a 12-storey development at Yonge and Millard Avenue. The project is in the town’s site plan approval process.

• The eight-storey York Region Administrative Centre Annex building at Yonge and Eagle Street, which is occupied.

 

More mid- and highrise applications are currently in various stages of the application process.

“Much of Newmarket’s future growth will be in the form of mid and highrise buildings, specifically concentrated along Yonge Street and Davis Drive,” Peter Noehammer, the town’s commissioner of development and infrastructure services, said.

While Central York firefighters are already trained to fight building fires, training now for future highrise blazes means the fire department is prepared for, rather than reacting in hindsight to, a possible future tragic fire, Montgomery said.

For highrise fires, the department is using 65-millimetre hoses with capacity for 1,000 litres of water flow per minute, compared to traditional 45-millimetre hoses that accommodate 550 litres per minute, allowing firefighters to quickly fill an apartment or condo unit on fire “like a fish bowl,” Montgomery said.

Larger nozzles are big enough for a tennis ball to pass through, ensuring obstructions such as rocks, sediment or garbage -- possibly found in a building’s internal water source -- can be flushed out.

The department’s largest aerial truck reaches up to eight floors, meaning highrise fires are fought using buildings’ internal water supplies, Capt. Tamara Roitman said.

“We fight fires from the inside,” she said.

Battling house fires, compared to building blazes, is different, Asst. Deputy Chief Claude Duval said.

“It’s important for us to adapt because when you look at a single-family dwelling, a regular house fire, you have a limited number of occupants, a family, which normally, if they have their fire alarm working, they’re already outside (when firefighters arrive) … In this type of (highrise) environment, you have multiple people to deal with, most of which we’re telling them stay in your apartment because that’s the safest place you can be. We have to keep it like that for them because we’ve told them to stay there,” he said.

“We have a challenge because now the water supply is not as easy as stretching the hose line from the truck to the scene of the (house) fire. Now, they (firefighters) have to bring their equipment to the fire, they have to fight that fire from within … It’s vital for us to keep that fire as close as possible to the area of origin because we’ve told people to stay where you are, that’s where you’re safe. We have to keep it safe for them and get that fire out as quick as possible.”

With construction and furniture materials more likely to be made of pressed wood these days, fires are likely to burn more quickly now, Montgomery said.

On a residential floor at 185 Deerfield, firefighters train with ropes tied around door handles in the hall so they can quickly close a door if they encounter a raging fire inside a unit.

Front doors on the units and doors to stairwells have self-closing hinges and can burn for about two hours before a fire can get through into the hallway, Acting Capt. Tuker Payment said.

But that’s only as long as someone doesn’t remove the hinge screws or prop doors open because they find self-closing doors inconvenient, he said.

If a door on a burning unit is left open and a window inside is open, it can send a fire quickly into the hall “like a blowtorch,” Payment said.

“A lot of things have to fail or humans have to do a lot of different things for it to actually extend out of the unit to multiple units,” he said.