Eric Bunnell

Times-Journal

After spending the night at Regional Mental Health Care, St. Thomas, 34 residents of a city group home who fled a fire late Saturday have been re-settled in the community.

The fire has been blamed on a forbidden smoke which set a sofa ablaze in the TV room at Pine Hill Rest Home, 10 Chester St.

Alerted by the building's fire alarm, residents in their nightclothes and three staff fled flames and smoke just before midnight, finding safety in neighbouring Chester Street Christian Fellowship Church, the group home's desginated evacuation centre.

But no one was injured and city fire officials are pleased the evacuation went off without a hitch--in spite of the fact some residents require oxygen therapy and others use wheelchairs.

"They did a good job," Bill Todd, St. Thomas fire department chief fire preventation officer, said Sunday at the scene.

With Elgin-St. Thomas EMS assisting the frail, the residents were moved by school bus after the psychiatric hosital opened its doors to them.

Damage to the home is estimated at $250,000.

Firefighters contained the actual fire to the TV room but smoke spread through much of the building.

And although fire doors protected bedrooms, some residents may have lost their possessions.

Todd said Pine Hill is one of 14 group homes in the city which receive annual fire inspections, and the residence passed muster in November.

Smoking is listed as probable cause--"There's no other source," Todd said--even though a sign by a front door of the building which leads to the lounge notes smoking is forbidden by city bylaw.

"It's not allowed," Todd agreed.

After their night at the psychiatric hospital, the home's residents had been resettled in other group homes by midmorning Sunday.

"By 11 a.m. yesterday morning, they all had been placed in other group homes in the city: eight here, four there, a few there," Todd said Monday.

"Everyone is taken care of."

The home is owned by a Toronto man.

His name was not immediately available.