Select Page

Crackdown finds banned barbecues at 144 P.E.I. apartment buildings

Fire inspectors order barbecues off balconies across province after devastating fire

It was an explosion that woke Loyola Griffin from a deep sleep that night.

“Like a bomb going off,” he said. “I’ll never forget that noise.”

When he looked out his bedroom window, “it was just red. I was terrified.”

Griffin’s second floor apartment was right above where a barbecue propane tank had exploded, ignited by a fire in black landscaping mulch beside the building, and accelerated dramatically when it connected with the ground floor propane tank.

Griffin pulled on some shorts, ran into the hallway, pulled the fire alarm and banged on his neighbours’ doors, yelling “Fire! Fire! Get out!”

But the quick-spreading fire destroyed the three-storey building on Harley Street in Charlottetown in July 2019 and displaced all 52 residents. Most lost nearly everything they owned… [Read More]