(Montreal) The series of suspicious vehicle fires in Montreal continued Wednesday evening and into Thursday night, when several cars and a school bus were destroyed by flames during three separate interventions by firefighters.
The investigations into all these misdeeds have been entrusted to the arson squad of the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM). No arrests had been reported Thursday morning, and no one appeared to have been injured.
Around 11:25 p.m. Wednesday, seven cars parked on land in an industrial sector of the borough of Saint-Laurent, in northwestern Montreal, were ravaged by fire and are total losses. Firefighters from the Montreal Fire Safety Service (SSIM) received help from SPVM police officers during operations to extinguish the fire that occurred on boulevard Lebeau, near the intersection of chemin de la Côte-de-Liesse.
At the end of the night, Thursday, the causes and circumstances of this destruction of vehicles were not yet known. The first excavations of the rubble did not make it possible to find an incendiary object.
Around 1 a.m. Thursday, the fire caused the total loss of a school bus that was not roadworthy, police said. The vehicle was parked on a property on rue Jarry Est, near the intersection of boulevard Langelier, in the borough of Saint-Léonard, in northeast Montreal.
The flames caused minor damage to an adjacent building. As during the fire in Saint-Laurent, no incendiary object was found.
It was the second time in 24 hours that a school bus was ravaged by fire in the borough of Saint-Léonard. On Wednesday night, a similar vehicle was engulfed in flames on the land adjacent to a garage on rue Magloire.
Finally, at around 1:15 a.m. Thursday, a car parked on the street and a sports utility vehicle (SUV) that had been parked nearby, in the driveway of a private residence, caught fire and were heavily damaged on the avenue de London, near the intersection of boulevard Henri-Bourassa Est, in the borough of Montréal-Nord.
In this case, firefighters found that products had been used to fan the flames.
At the end of the night, the two vehicles had been towed in order to be examined by SPVM investigators.
These three vehicle fires follow several others that have occurred in recent days on the island of Montreal.
A fire was started in a vehicle parked in a residential entrance on rue Jacques-Chan, in Kirkland, and another occurred in a private entrance on boulevard Rosemont, in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. Tractors were heavily damaged by flames on the grounds of a commercial establishment in Dorval and a car parked in a private entrance on rue Antoine-Faucon, in Pierrefonds, was also set on fire.