TORONTO -- A fire so hot it burned plaster off the walls in a downtown Toronto hotel-apartment complex killed one 66-year-old man as he made his way down a stairwell and sent at least 19 people to hospital.
The fire which broke out about 11 a.m. EDT Thursday on the 18th floor of the 37-storey building, located at the major downtown intersection of Yonge and Bloor streets, was brought under control by firefighters two hours later.
Deputy Fire Chief Walter Shanahan said the body of Basil Campbell had been found in the 19th floor stairwell where Campbell collapsed trying to make his way through choking smoke from the 30th floor where he lived with his wife and daughter.
'He died breathing in the hot gases. It was the heat that killed him,' Shanahan said.
Shanahan said the fire, as intense as a blast furnace and which blackened the inside walls of the elegant complex from the 15th to the 20th floors, would have been contained sooner if the apartments had sprinklers.
But the Plaza II was built before 1980, when Toronto adopted a mandatory sprinkler law for high-rise apartments following a fatal fire at the Inn on the Park hotel, in which six were killed and 65 injured.
'It would have kept the fire under control and would have made things a lot easier, in my belief,' said Shanahan.
Nineteen people, including five firefighters were taken to three Toronto hospitals for treatment. Two of those were listed in serious condition, while most others were treated and released.
Among those injured was Captain Robert Johnson of the Toronto fire department who was treated for smoke inhalation after he and fellow firefighters formed a human chain to guide trapped tenants through the darkness to safety.
'Walking through those stairs was like walking into a black hole,' Johnson said. 'We lost all sense of time. We lost track of how many people we rescued.'
Power was knocked out in the complex and an adjacent Hudson's Bay department store. Firemen lugged 125 pounds of equipment up 18 flights of stairs and guided tenants down stairwells with the aid of flashlights.
Outside firemen using bullhorns shouted at residents to 'Stay where you are. Crews are on their way to rescue you.'
Dianne Craig, 25, a resident of the 20th floor, put towels along the doors and invited a neighbour over for wine as they waited to be rescued.
Seymour Sandweiss of Southfied, Mich., was treated at hospital and released after he was cut by flying glass as he stood in the courtyard of the hotel where he and other guests had been herded by firefighters.
His wife said they heard explosions on the 18th floor, where the fire began, and then huge jagged pieces of glass rained down on the courtyard.
'We used cigaret lighters to find out way down to the parking ramp and from there out of the building,' said Mrs. Sandweiss.
Shanahan said the fire had broken out in Suite 1809 and gutted it entirely. He said the woman living in the suite left the door open when she fled allowing oxygen to fuel the flames.
Thousands of spectators crowded into the area, joining evacuated tenants and hotel guests, to watch the fire. The Red Cross set up an registration center in office space loaned by Merrill Lynch Securities in the ground floor of the complex to allow friends of occupants to check on their safety and whereabouts.
Shanahan said cause of the fire was under investigation. Damage from the flames, smoke and water was estimated in the tens of thousands of dollars.
The 256-room hotel below the apartment complex would reopen later today, officials said. After a preliminary investigation by the city coroner, tenants would be allowed to return to their apartments, possibly as soon as Friday, police said.
