The Day We Saved the King Street Station
No recollection of major fires would be complete without mention of the Zellers Department Store fire on the evening of January 25, 1968, which completely destroyed the store along with a large 2 story wooden building on King Street and damaged the Central King St. Fire Station.
About 8.P.M. on a mild foggy winter evening while off duty at home I received a phone call to report for duty, there was a fire in the basement of Zellers on Queen Street.
All members of my Platoon (3) were called in to Central and as the fire in the basement of Zellers became out of control. Ee operated as a stand by crew in case of another call and at the same time assisted in the general operations on the Zeller Fire. One of our jobs was to try and force holes in the flat roof to ventilate a difficult task with the tools available at the time.
Chief Doherty was in hospital at the time and Deputy Don Hersey as Acting Chief was directing on the Queen St. area, assisted by then Deputy Fred Ames who was also on call back.
As the fire engulfed the ground floor it became dangerous on the roof so we withdrew with 1-1/2" hose lines to the roof of the fire station where I figured would be a good vantage point to protect the station when the roof caved in. As Pumper 3 set in at the hydrant by the Savage building was delivering all the water available, I ordered the Tanker hooked to the stand pipe and two 1-1/2" lines taken off it.
Just about this time the roof collapsed and to put it plainly "All Hell Broke Loose" and some heads lost all reasonable thinking. Some city councilors of the day were running around saying the station was gone and with help of anyone came along started to strip the station of everything. The lines I had placed on the roof were thrown down by someone's order, I never did find out who.
Deputy Ames thought the station was gone, but I would not accept this idea, and with help from some of our best men, Capt. Kerton, Bill Seymour, Glen MacWilliams Bob Richard, we placed the abandoned 1-1/2" hose lines at the windows at the back of the station and side windows and when the heat broke the glass then opened up on the fire driving it away from the walls. At the same time members of the Nashwaaksis Department were operating a 2-1/2" line from Pumper 3 at the front on King Street and covered the dormitory area from there consequently those windows were not broken by the fire as the back section had been.
It was close for a time but the good steady work of the men on the nozzles soon had the fire driven away from the north side of the fire station.
At this time you could see the fire spreading to the back of the large wood from building up King Street but as all efforts were concentrated on the station side, the fire gained much headway before Pumper 2 was brought over from Station 2 and set in at the corner of York & King Street.
I cannot recall all of the fire fighters involved in this area on that night, but in addition to the afore mentioned, I remember my crew of Platoon 3, Hazen Boulter, Aubrey Owens, and Sonny Maston who was overcome by smoke in the early stages while on a hose line at the basement entrance in Wilmot Alley.
David Paul was on one of the lines in the recreation room along with Bob Richard. Call firemen Jerry and Joe Dobbelsteyn were in that area and Captain Don MacLaggan recovering from a shoulder operation was in the area helping out as much as he could with one good arm.
Old friend and former firefighter Glen Kitchen was around and always told us we did a good job, however in retrospect I have often thought the council of the time may have wished the building had burned then they could have sold the remains and ground to Zellers when the re-built.
I have often said if we had lost the station that night, I would have worn my badge upside down for the rest of my career or gave up fire fighting in disgust.
Quite an interesting evening and one I will not forget.
The old station was never quite the same for the last three or four years we were there, the new Zellers store was built up to two floors closing all the windows on the north side or the station, so I suppose progress demanded a new modern central fire station be built. So today as I write this account (May 1989) the old building still stands at 447 King Street, a dry cleaning plant One Hour Martinizing and Old Bill's hoof prints are still in the cement under the pavement just to the up town side of what was the upper door of the station.