Fire at old hospital in Sudbury deemed suspicious

A fire at an old building in Sudbury is being treated as suspicious.

On Wednesday evening, fire crews were called to the old General Hospital building on Paris Street. A fire was burning on the second floor.

"Crews worked for several hours to gain access to the property, get our tools, equipment and get water onto that fire as quickly as possible," deputy fire chief Jesse Oshell said.

He said the fire was extinguished around 1:30 a.m. Thursday morning.

As for the cause, Oshell said crews believe combustible materials left from a former movie production scene are to blame.

"We suspect that it was that material that was on fire," he said.

"We do feel that it is suspicious because the hospital is abandoned. There is no occupancy there for certain, and that material has been there for some time."

Oshell said police have been notified about the fire. He added fire officials have also been in contact with Panoramic Properties, the owner of the building, as well as the city.

"We want to make sure that it is still a safe structure to be there," he said.

"We've shared those concerns with our partners in the city at building services who are experts at that and we'll see what the next steps are. We want to make sure that the building is sound at this point in time until such time as Panoramic is going to be doing something with it."

In a statement, Greater Sudbury Police said officers are working in collaboration with the Ontario Fire Marshal's office to investigate the fire.

"Additional information provided was that multiple individuals were seen running from the building towards Bell Park shortly before smoke was seen coming from the building," said the update from police.

Panoramic purchased property, at the time called the St. Joseph's hospital, in 2010 but little has been done with it since then.

Last fall, the company said it is moving forward with plans to build housing on the site, but was unable to say when demolition of the building would take place.