Firefighters battle downtown Montreal blaze

A 2 a.m. fire tore through a historic mixed-use building, forcing dozens of residents to flee as 150 firefighters battled the blaze.

Montreal firefighters battled a five-alarm fire in the city’s downtown area early Tuesday morning.

The department was called to a two-storey building, which houses shops on the ground floor and apartments above, at the intersection of Sainte-Catherine and Towers streets at 2:10 a.m.

More than 150 firefighters responded to the blaze, which started as a two-alarm fire but was quickly upgraded.

“The fire spread quickly. It’s an old building from the 1900s,” Francis Fleury, section chief with the Montreal fire department, told Noovo Info. “The fire is difficult to control, and firefighters are working hard to extinguish it.”

Several people were forced out of the building, including one person who had to be pulled from a balcony.

They were taken in by the Red Cross.

Firefighters warn there could be ongoing outages in the area.

“The winds are causing the smoke to spread throughout the neighbourhood,” Fleury added.

There were no reported injuries.

People are being asked to avoid the scene.