Fire of March 21 | Forty million to repair damage to the Olympic Stadium

(Quebec) The cost of the March 21 fire at the Olympic Stadium is steep. Quebec grants the Olympic Park a grant of a maximum amount of $40 million to decontaminate and repair the facilities.

The Legault government’s council of ministers adopted a decree to this effect, a document published this Wednesday in the Gazette officielle du Québec.

Although the fire did not cause any injuries and did not put the structures of the Olympic Stadium at risk, it caused “significant damage due to the abundant infiltration of noxious smoke and the watering by the firefighters in order to to put out the fire”, underlined the Olympic Park after the events.

The National Sports Institute (INS) of Quebec, the Olympic Stadium sports center and the rental floors of the Montreal Tower have since been closed and will remain closed for approximately six months.

The Olympic Park specified on April 3 that “more than 275 people are working tirelessly to evaluate, decontaminate and clean the 67,000 m^⁠2 affected. All teams are mobilized to secure the site, carry out air quality studies, undertake cleaning, clearing and soot decontamination work.

Quebec will pay the bill. According to the decree, the Minister of Tourism, Caroline Proulx, is “authorized to pay to the Société de développement et de mise en Valeur du ParcOlympique a subsidy of a maximum amount of $40,000,000, during the fiscal year 2023-2024, for carrying out decontamination and repair work resulting from the fire of March 21, 2024.

Forty million dollars is the equivalent of the cost of building an average-sized elementary school.

According to the Arson Unit of the Montreal City Police Service (SPVM), to which the investigation was entrusted into this fire, the fire was caused by “human action”.

“However, at this stage, it has not been determined whether this is an accidental or intentional gesture,” Jean-Pierre Brabant, spokesperson for the SPVM, indicated at the beginning of the month. This is what we will try to determine during the investigation which is still ongoing. »

The fire occurred overnight, on the southeast side of the Stadium mast. The Press specified at the beginning of the month that the blaze started in an area sheltering a “mirror pool”, closed during the winter. However, this place is partly covered by a roof where homeless people go to take refuge, we added. To warm up, one of them would have lit a fire which would then have spread in the fiberglass contained in a structure, again according to information obtained by The Press.

With Simon Drouin, The Press