Fire on Mont-Royal

Man, there are a lot of fires in Montreal, especially in the winter. It seems that not a week goes by where you don't hear about some building burning down. It's often a plex building with several apartments and a storefront. They usually tend to happen to the north or east of us yuppies here in the Plateau, but last night the building that housed the Pitt shoe store caught on fire. It's on Mont-Royal and St. Dominique, about 3 blocks from our place. The firemen here kick some ass and respond really quickly, but it still seems worrisome with all these attached units and so many of them being so old. I think the age is part of the reason there are so many fires, but I've heard also that a lot of them are started by people supplementing their heat with space heaters. A dangerous practice!

I'm not normally too sympathetic a person, but my heart really goes out to those poor souls who lose their home, all their stuff and their warmth and comfort in the middle of friggin' winter. That must be just terrible. I renewed my home insurance this week, but I seriously think we should get some fire extinguishers for our place.



This picture doesn't really capture it because the street was closed off around it and we're in the middle of a snowfall, but this is a very busy, commercial part of town, with shops and restaurants up and down the street. The shoe store was one of those that sells all new cheap non-brand name shoes, mostly made in China. I bought my nephew some Winnie-the-Pooh snow boots there once which his mother detested. But the kid needed some boots! There must have been a lot of burning vinyl in the air last night.

Bonus snow lion picture!



"I will protect you and your kind. But for god's sake keep those batteries in your smoke alarms charged!"