Two separate fires, one at an apartment building and the other at an Asian grocery store, roughly eight hours apart are being treated as suspicious, according to London fire officials.
Multiple 911 calls came in to report the first blaze at a three-storey walk-up apartment building at 1825 Whitney Street, southwest of the intersection of Dundas Street and Clarke Road, around 9:30 p.m. Thursday. When firefighters arrived on scene smoke was coming from a second floor unit.
"We knew going into it there was something very serious going on," said Platoon Chief Gary Mosburger.
An alarm system within the building had been triggered, notifying tenants and allowing them time to make it out safely.
Mosburger said crews used an aggressive attack to extinguish the fire, which was contained to the second floor unit.
One person was taken to hospital with unspecified injuries.
Damage is pegged at $20,000.
Then just after 5 a.m. on Friday, firefighters were called to a dumpster fire at United Supermarket at 1062 Adelaide Street North, north of Cheapside.
"Usually dumpsters are fairly small enough that a single fire engine can handle it. Once our first engine arrived to the call they realized it was much more than a dumpster fire and in fact a large pile of skids and bundles of cardboard were burning up next to and close to the building creating some flame damage," said Mosburger. "Immediately the officer on scene initiated a structure fire response and we had multiple resources then to keep the fire from extending into the building."
No injuries were reported.
A damage estimate has not yet been determined, but the one side of the building was visibly charred.
"With a commercial building like that it can be incredibly costly depending on what parts of the building are damaged. So we are determining finer details around the dollar estimation before we release that," said Mosburger.
Both fires have been deemed suspicious and fire investigators and London police are probing the "origin, cause, and circumstances." It is expected they will remain on scene of both fires for much of the day Friday.
Anyone with information about either fire is asked to call police at 519-661-5670 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).