The Toronto Fire chief said he “cannot imagine the frustration” of residents living in a Thorncliffe Park complex where fire is once again burning after flames smouldered for weeks late last year.
While Chief Jim Jessop said he cannot comment on how the latest blaze started, fire investigators were on scene Monday to determine the cause.
Over 400 residents were evacuated in November from two highrise buildings, located at 11 Thorncliffe Park Dr. and 21 Overlea Blvd., when a fire broke out between a shared wall. Firefighters said flames had engulfed the combustible particle board placed in an expansion joint between the two buildings.
Jessop previously described the late 2025 fire was one of the “most complex, unprecedented and prolonged firefighting challenges ever experienced by Toronto Fire Services.”
Crews extinguished the fire in mid-December and turned over the buildings to property management. Many residents were allowed to return home early January.
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On Monday, Toronto Fire Services shared news of a fire on the seventh floor of the same Thorncliffe Park highrise. The fire was quickly upgraded to a third alarm, but Jessop said as of Monday afternoon, residents have been advised to shelter in place.
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“We have made arrangements for those that choose to evacuate. We have TTC buses on site,” he said. “But at this point, there is no public risk or public danger to any of the occupants inside the building.”
Officials say there have been no injuries reported and crews are monitoring air quality to make sure it is safe for residents to remain inside.
“[Residents] are safe, and you are safe right now as part of the rehabilitation from the previous fire, the building’s owner and their engineering team boarded it off and basically isolated the area in question on both sides of the building,” Jessop said.
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Following the initial fire last year, three companies were charged. Jessop said at the time that PFC Construction Inc. was in violation of the Ontario Fire Code when workers were allegedly using ignition sources near combustible materials, causing the fire to ignite.
The Metropolitan Toronto Condominium Corporation 956 and its parent company Del Property Management Inc., were also charged with failing to implement the building’s fire safety plan, which requires the fire department to be contacted upon activation of the building fire alarm system.
Jessop did not comment on whether or not there was any suspicion of malpractice surrounding the flames reported Monday. He said the building owners took measures to prevent the fire from restarting, but did not say what those measures were.
“We learned a lot of lessons from last time that our incident action plan has been informed by,” Jessop said. “The reason we don’t have to evacuate both buildings right now is because of the boarding and isolation to repair the previous units that the building owners and engineers built that basically isolated those areas.”
Jessop said officials are keeping up communication with residents to have their needs met on a case-by-case basis.
“I absolutely have the utmost sympathy and my thoughts are really for the residents right now,” he said. “I cannot imagine their frustration, their questions, their angst.
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“That is where my heart is with them, is with the residents right now, and that is why we are absolutely committing again. We will not leave until they are safe and the fire is completely extinguished.”
—with files from The Canadian Press
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
