It was about four in the morning, and snow had been falling for hours as the tenants slept in the rooming house at 16 Bell St. N. But just across the street, Ansong Hoang was wide awake, and rushing to the phone.
“I saw the smoke and I called 9-1-1,” says Hoang.
The fire alarm at the rooming house was wailing, and firefighters were hastening to the scene. But they wouldn’t get there until 4:14 a.m. By that time, it would have been too late for the man trapped in the building’s basement, if not for the actions of one courageous neighbour.
A man living in the other side of the duplex rooming house ran out into the snow after hearing the fire alarm. But instead of waiting for fire trucks to arrive, he rushed back into the smoke-filled building and began fighting the blaze.
Although reports vary, what is certain is that after emptying several fire extinguishers to no avail, this man and other tenants broke a basement window and pulled another man – blackened from the fire and smoke – out of his room.
The courageous neighbour was identified in one media report as Paul Roy, but like many of the former tenants of the 20-unit rooming house, his whereabouts are currently unknown.
The man he helped to save is still in the hospital and heavily sedated, said Rev. Gregor Sneddon from nearby St. Luke’s Anglican Church, who went to pray with the man soon after the fire.
But according to John Gillissie, a spokesman with the Ottawa Fire Department, the injured man is improving.
The rooming house is currently boarded up, and the Ontario Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating the cause of the fire.
Other than the man pulled out of the basement, no one was injured.
Roy and many of the other former tenants have not been seen in the area since the fire, said neighbours.
To try to find the hero from that March 10 night, Centretown News went to the soup kitchen that Roy and other victims of the fire have been known to frequent.
Meal coordinator Maxine Stata spoke about the lives of the former tenants of 16 Bell St., and the building where they used to live.
“If you were to ask me would you live in some of the rooming houses in the neighbourhood, I would say that I hope I would never have to do that.”
Many of those who have found themselves at the rooming house on Bell Street over the years are newly divorced, just out of jail, or dealing with drug problems or mental illness, says Stata. But money remains an issue for all.
Despite the heroism of Roy and others, the fact remains that they and the other tenants have lost a place to live.
Most haven’t been to the Lunch Club since the fire, said Stata, including Roy. But a message has been sent to the Lunch Club’s clients in the hopes that the fire victims will learn that they have clothes, blankets and food waiting if they need them.