In early 1945 the media in Canada was dominated by the imminent collapse of Nazi Germany. But on March 1, attention in Guelph focused on news of major fires in the city’s downtown core. The conflagrations revealed the Guelph Fire Department was inadequately equipped to fight a big blaze.
At about 11:30 p.m. on Feb. 28, a passerby dashed into the lobby of the New Wellington Hotel on Wyndham Street and told night clerk Edward Olbriecht smoke was coming from the upper floor of an annex of the four-storey building. Olbreicht ran upstairs to alert the guests as well as two employees, Marsena Bye and Agnes Hughes, who had rooms in the annex. He almost was trapped himself when he went to his own room to rescue some money and personal property.
The Guelph Fire Department responded to the alarm quickly, but didn’t have an aerial ladder that would have enabled the firemen to attack the blaze from above. The men had to haul the hose to the top storey manually. It was exhausting work, and increasingly dangerous because the ladders soon became encased in ice.
LAC (leading aircraftman) Albert Mabey of the RCAF, a guest at the hotel who was assisting the firemen, fell from a slippery ladder and suffered a broken leg. fire chief Charles Vince and several of his men received minor injuries when a part of the roof fell on them.
To make matters worse, the department’s only extension ladder was damaged and could no longer be used. The Guelph Fire Department could not call on a neighbouring community to send a fire truck with an aerial ladder because the hoses from another fire department wouldn’t fit Guelph’s hydrants, and the Guelph department’s hoses wouldn’t fit the other department’s equipment.
Despite those problems, the firefighters had the blaze under control after about three hours. The upper floor of the annex was gutted, and five stores on the ground floor had extensive smoke and water damage. Fortunately, the firemen were able to prevent the flames from reaching Sherwin-Williams paint store which contained barrels of turpentine and other highly combustible substances, and the Kennedy Drug Store in which there was a stock of ether. If any of those had been ignited, said the Mercury, the result would have been “a holocaust.”
Damage was estimated at more than $100,000, which would be in the millions of dollars in today’s funds.
On the evening of March 1, firemen had barely finished pouring water on the smouldering ruins left by the Wellington Hotel fire when a new blaze burst out in Guelph’s downtown. Firemen responded to a call that smoke was pouring out of a closet in the Regent Hotel on Macdonell Street. The fire engine had just arrived in front of the Regent, when Hugh Prentice, who was on his way to a meeting of the Royal Canadian Legion, ran up to tell the firefighters the he saw flames in the attic windows of the Legion Hall on Priory Square, two blocks away.
The newly-renovated and furnished Legion Hall was housed in what had formerly been the Bell Piano factory, one of the oldest and largest industrial buildings in Guelph. Its clock tower was a downtown landmark. The legion had only recently acquired full ownership of the building. With its spanking new kitchen, auditorium, lounge, dance hall, canteen and billiard room, the hall was a Royal Canadian Legion showpiece. Now it was being devoured by an inferno.
The fire in the Regent was quickly extinguished, but the legion fire became a monster. The firemen found their earlier battle against the Wellington Hotel fire had left the water pressure so low, there wasn’t sufficient force from their hoses to even break through the windows of the burning building. The firemen paid boys to throw rocks to smash the windows so they could try to direct some water inside. Once again, the lack of an aerial ladder and an extension ladder put them at a disadvantage. Moreover, many of the firemen hadn’t slept since first responding to the Wellington blaze. Now they were exhausted. Women from the nearby YWCA brought jugs of hot coffee to help them keep going.
Fearful that the fire would spread to the nearby Royal Theatre, Guelph police had the building evacuated and movie-goers joined the growing crowd of spectators on the street. Servicemen in the crowd assisted the firefighters, as did several members of the legion. John Nevin, the legion's pensions secretary, was instrumental in helping several people get out of the building and managed to save irreplaceable pension documents. Eb Lacey, the legion’s custodian and bouncer who actually resided on the premises, rescued a valuable collection of guns. When legion secretary Jean Russell fled from her office, she took her typewriter. Volunteers helped carry boxes of goods from the Snyder Candy Company, which had premises in the basement.
At one point the firemen thought they had the blaze contained, but flames somehow jumped a firewall and spread to a section of the building occupied by the Steele Brothers Wire Spring Company. The clock tower collapsed, and the hellish glow from the fire against the night sky could be seen for miles around the city.
It was well after midnight before the firefighters finally had the flames under control. By that time, the building was a gutted ruin. Fortunately, there had been no fatalities. One more fireman had been injured, suffering a broken ankle when he took a fall.
In the aftermath of the conflagration, rumours were rampant around Guelph that an arsonist carrying out a vendetta against establishments that served alcohol was responsible for the sudden rash of fires. Some boys claimed to have seen a prowler with a flashlight through the legion’s windows. Some people suspected Nazi agents. Oily rags were found on the floor near the site of the closet fire in the Regent Hotel, although the fire department blamed that outbreak on faulty electrical wiring.
An investigation by the police and the fire department turned up no evidence of sabotage by enemy agents or anyone else. But members of city council had plenty to say about the fire department’s lack of modern equipment. They praised the courage and devotion to duty of the firemen, but stated, “A lot of citizens feel we have just a bucket brigade department.”
