A major fire in east Montreal leaves some 30 families homeless

The fire broke out around 12:45 p.m. ET on Monday in a four-storey residential and commercial building at Crémazie and Saint-Michel boulevards, near Highway 40.

“There was already smoke coming out of the building, there were people stuck on the balconies. The firefighters quickly rescued those people.”

— Francis Fleury, Montreal fire department

On the scene in mid-afternoon

150 firefighters

It was a fifth-alarm fire: about 150 firefighters were still fighting the flames in mid-afternoon, and all of the roughly 30 apartments upstairs were evacuated.

Three people were taken to hospital after inhaling smoke and dozens of children were evacuated from a ground-floor daycare; the cause of the fire is still unknown.