A resident started a fire after spilling gasoline. The sprinklers carried the contaminant up seven floors. Forty units were affected: $950,000 in damages, 40 tenants to be relocated, all with only one functioning elevator. Bélisle organized everything: a contents removal plan, a decontamination protocol with a laboratory, and a two-phase, documented reconstruction. The property manager focused on their tenants; Bélisle handled everything else.
Type of incident: Fire + gasoline contamination spread by sprinklers
Sector: Rental residential
Scope: ~40 units, 7 floors, common areas, mechanical and elevator shafts
Value of incident: $900,000 to $950,000
Tenants displaced: ~40 (in a building with ~100 residents, with only one functioning elevator)
Context
A resident with mental health issues poured gasoline in their apartment, starting a fire. The sprinklers spread the contaminated water across 7 floors. Forty units were affected, as well as common areas, stairwells, and mechanical shafts. The loss is estimated between $900,000 and $950,000.
The stakeholders: building manager, director of operations for the management company, claims adjuster, building damage estimator, mandated laboratory, specialized cleaning company, and approximately 40 tenant insurers.
The real problem
For the manager, the situation quickly escalated: a gasoline smell throughout the building, 40 tenants to relocate, and a broken elevator in a building housing 100 people. Every removal of contents had to be planned down to the day.
Meanwhile, the 40 tenant insurance companies were demanding extension periods for relocation. Each had its own coverage limits for relocation. If the delays were extended, some tenants would be left without coverage. It was a full-time administrative burden, on top of dealing with the disaster itself.
The pressure
The most critical moment occurred during the first few hours after the disaster. A content removal plan must be established, a laboratory must be commissioned, relocations coordinated, and communication with 40 different insurers must be handled simultaneously.
Bélisle takes charge of the entire operational coordination of the project. The property manager focuses on what no one else can do for them: maintaining contact with their tenants.
The intervention
Bélisle’s first decision: to recommend that the insurer commission a laboratory as a priority. Without analysis, it’s impossible to know what to remove. With the laboratory in place, a precise protocol is established: the laboratory analyzes, Bélisle demolishes, and the cleaning company decontaminates. This rigorous sequence is repeated zone by zone.
The content removal plan is structured with the property manager by floor, according to the capacity of the single elevator still in operation. Specific dates are communicated to the 40 tenant insurers to coordinate relocations.
On-site, thermal imaging cameras and humidity meters are used daily to adjust the scope in real time without the building manager having to intervene in the technical decisions.
It’s a 100% transparent project: weekly reports to the claims adjuster and the estimator detail progress, hours worked, and suppliers. The reconstruction is planned in two phases of 20 units each, with fixed dates. The building manager knows when each unit will be ready.
Unforeseen events
The elevator shaft was contaminated. Tests were required to assess the extent of the damage. Result: no structural damage. This risk had been anticipated from the outset and not discovered halfway through the project in front of the building manager.
If the contamination had been misjudged, the project could have been restarted from scratch, with delays stretching into several weeks, and several tenants would have exceeded their insurance coverage limits.
Result
Reconstruction: 40 units, 2 phases of 20 units: schedule met
Content removal: Planned and executed with a single elevator, without incident
Communication: 40 tenant insurers informed and coordinated
Decontamination : Validated by laboratory, no residual contaminants
Reduced workload for the manager: Complete technical and administrative site coordination
“We demonstrated agility, working closely with all the necessary stakeholders. That’s how we executed it.”
— Maxime Bélisle, Project Manager