Cambridge firefighters responded to a fire at a warehouse on Dundas Street North around noon Monday.
Smoke could be seen billowing from the roof of the building at 431 Dundas St. N., which backs onto the railway tracks next to Samuelson Street.
An aerial ladder was being used to douse the blaze, which appeared to be contained to one of the units and back of the multi-tenant building.
Police initially advised people to avoid the area near Manchester Public School and had closed Dundas between Cambridge Street and Wellington Street.
Bill Griffin, owner of Affordable Contract Solutions, is in one of the units damaged by the fire.
“It was not a vacant building that was on fire," he said, responding to initial media reports on the blaze.
"These are all real people with businesses. I have thousands of dollars worth of tools back there.”
Griffin said this is the second fire at the building in the last six months and speculates it could have been caused by someone from a nearby homeless encampment.
Chris Eldred, who owns the building, said he believes someone was on the railway tracks burning wires to collect the copper for scrap metal.
“The wind picked up the sparks and blew it at the building,” Eldred said.
He said he can’t even begin to estimate how much equipment and material has been destroyed by the fire that gutted at least one unit and halted the business of several others in the industrial area.
“Without tools how can we work? The back of the building is a complete write off,” Griffin said.
Police at the scene said it is too early to tell what caused the fire and don't expect to provide an update until their investigation is complete.
The Dundas Street fire was the second blaze Cambridge firefighters responded to Monday.
They were first called to a home on Macteith Court in the Greenway-Chaplin neighbourhood in Galt around 9 a.m.
In a post to Twitter around 9:30 a.m. firefighters said four stations responded to the early morning fire and were quickly able to bring the fire under control. Investigators were on scene looking for the cause.
No injuries were reported.
Police set an initial damage estimate at $200,000.
