About 100 firefighters from fire departments in as many as 10 neighbouring municipalities were called to the scene of a raging five-alarm blaze on Boxing Day morning at a spa in Mont-St-Hilaire in the Montérégie region south of Montreal — a fire that was not yet completely under control five hours after the first call came in just before 9 a.m.
At that hour, there was only a handful of clients at the Strøm Nordic Spa Mont-St-Hilaire; along with the employees who were at work, everyone was safely evacuated; no injuries were reported.
Employees noticed that smoke was coming out through the roof of the spa’s original building. About 30 people, including the four or five clients who were there, were quickly evacuated. The first firefighters were on the scene six minutes after the first alarm at 8:58 a.m. and, already, flames were visible, said Jean Clément, director of the fire department in the off-island suburb, the Service Sécurité Incendie de Mont-Saint-Hilaire.
He said the fire was “very difficult to fight.” Firefighters from communities including Otterburn Park, Beloeil, McMasterville, St-Basile-le-Grand, St-Jean-Baptiste and Chambly were called in to help.
The original building was heavily damaged; a new, neighbouring, section of the spa sustained smoke damage, but was spared fire damage, Clément said.
He said the fire did not look suspicious, but that it is too early to definitively know its cause. Strøm management said the cause of the blaze was probably electrical — likely a problem in the dry sauna. A press release was posted on their website notifying customers of the fire and saying the affected areas would be rebuilt. Meanwhile, it said that appointments can be rescheduled at the Strøm spas in Nuns’ Island and Sherbrooke, and all gift certificates would be valid there as well.
