Fire rips through Toronto construction site attached to the Eaton Centre

Flames tore through a construction site attached to the CF Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto on Wednesday night.

Toronto Fire was called to the scene at Yonge and Queen just before 10 p.m., where flames could be seen raging from the work site at 2 Queen Street West. The situation was soon upgraded to a two-alarm fire.

[UD] 2 Alarm
Fire (commercial/industrial)
Queen St East @ Yonge Street
Dispatched: 17/05/23 @ 21:52 EDT Updt: 17/05/23 @ 22:04 EDT
[Stn: 332] A325 A331 A426 C30 C31 C34 C42 CMD30 HR114 HZ323 LA325 P312 P313 P323 P332 P333 P334 R325 S313 S331 A315

— Toronto Fire (@tofire) May 18, 2023

Photos shared on Reddit show flames shooting from the construction site, trailing a plume of black smoke into the night sky, as onlookers stand around with phones in hand.

One of the bystanders shared a video of the chaos with blogTO, showing firefighters scaling ladders and dousing the building's second floor with water in an attempt to control the blaze.

Flames erupt from construction site next to Eaton Centre in Toronto - 📹 Sahar Golshani #Toronto #TorontoFire pic.twitter.com/1LJa4GlcvN

— blogTO (@blogTO) May 18, 2023

The site is home to the 1895-built Jamieson Building at the intersection's northwest corner, currently undergoing a reconstruction and expansion project.

The building, while part of the Eaton Centre's superblock and under the same ownership as the mall, is being restored as an independent project that will restore the original 19th-century exterior while adding new glass-enclosed levels above.

However, Wednesday night's blaze and the subsequent deluge of water from firefighters will likely delay this construction project, which has already dragged on for five years. Protective tarps first obscured the building back in 2018, and any prospect of a forthcoming completion just evaporated.

It's not the first recent fire to threaten the Eaton Centre.

In 2022, a fire tore through the mall's attached above-ground parking garage, damaging cars and forcing an evacuation of the shopping centre.