Three brave Etobicoke firefighters were killed in a Kimberly-Clark fire 45-years ago.
Etobicoke firefighters are pausing today to remember three colleagues who were killed on December 4, 1978 in a massive blaze at a Kimberly-Clark warehouse.
District Chief Lloyd Janes, Captain Donald Kerr and Fire Fighter John Clark had responded to the Kimberly-Clark fire on Disco Road 45 years ago that involved large bales of rolled paper.
The building had been the scene of two recent, suspicious fires weeks before, news clips reported.
One of the firefighter being rushed from the scene for medical help by his colleagues.
“The sprinkler system had contained the fire, but during overhaul of the blaze, the three firemen were killed instantly when 600-pound water-soaked paper rolls fell on them,” according to reports.
“The paper rolls were five-feet in diameter, stacked 18-inches apart and 20 feet high and became unstable and toppled burying the men,” the accounts state.
It was one of the worst tragedies to rock Etobicoke Fire Department and most residents of Toronto.
“It was a day that we will never forget,” said the son of one of the firefighters killed.
The firefighters perished after a 600-pound of water-logged roll of paper fell on them during the blaze.
Janes body was found almost immediately in the rubble and it would be some time later when the bodies of Kerr and Clark were discovered.
The three were beyond help, colleagues said then.
Janes was a war veteran who had risen through the ranks of the New Toronto Fire Department to become Deputy Chief of the Etobicoke Fire Department after the amalgamation of forces in 1967.
Kerr was an experienced 23-year veteran fireman at the time who had joined the department in 1955.
The tragedy was the second worst in Etobicoke’s history, with the first being the deaths of five volunteer firemen during Hurricane Hazel.
Clark was recently married when he met his untimely death and was a 14-year veteran.
The tragedy then was the second largest one-time loss of life of Etobicoke firefighters and was only surpassed by the deaths of five volunteer firemen in the swollen Humber River during Hurricane Hazel in October 1954 that killed 469 people, including 81 in Canada.
Hurricane Hazel left thousands homeless, including many in South Etobicoke, as 110-km winds caused more than 11-inches of rain to fall in 48 hours. It caused an estimated at $100 million (about $1 billion today) in damages. This storm would change the Toronto landscape forever and mobilize the need for managing watersheds on a regional basis.