Firefighters still in hospital

It could take three months to determine the exact cause of an explosion and fire that levelled a Mississauga warehouse, early Wednesday — and to learn whether hazardous chemicals, were burned in the blaze. The Ontario Fire Marshal has begun to sift through the ruins:

If there’s a needle in this haystack, Mike Potvin with the Ontario Fire Marshal said they will find it: “You see we have heavy equipment in the background being provided by the municipality to try to find clues and evidence with regards to the potential cause of this fire.”

The Mississauga warehouse was run by GE Logistics and Forwarding. On the company web page it states that the facility is: “Managed by a team with over 25 years of knowledge and experience with dangerous goods.”

And that’s the key element to this investigation.

Although there have been reports that containers of aerosol bug spray may have triggered the blast that levelled the 53-thousand square foot facility, fire officials say they don’t know what was in the warehouse — but they are working to find out.

Mike said: “We can confirm with what we have on paper as to what we can find as we go through the debris in the building.”

What they do know, is that the blast very nearly killed, four firefighters.

Mississauga Fire Chief John McDougall: “They were very seriously injured a long recovery period. Two of them had surgery may be released shortly.”

The fourth firefighter was treated for smoke inhalation and released from hospital last night. As for the investigation and possible criminal charges the Fire Marshal’s office says it could take two to three months to sift and analyze the evidence.