The Ottawa Hospital asks people to avoid General campus after transformer fire

The Ottawa Hospital is asking members of the public to avoid its General campus on Smyth Road after a fire broke out in a transformer Friday afternoon.

At about 3:45 p.m. Friday, Ottawa Fire Services responded to a call reporting the transformer fire in a hydro vault on the third floor of the hospital, according to a post on X, formerly Twitter.

Ottawa fire said nobody was injured, but some patients were transferred from the west wing to the east wing ofthe fourth floor to avoid smoke and shelter in place.

As of about6 p.m., approximately 100 patients had been relocated. Those patients were relocated throughout the building, ahospital spokesperson said in an email.

The hospitaldeclared a "code orange" around 7:50 p.m. on Friday, and it's still in effect Saturday morning.

A Code Orange is called to allow the hospital to divert patients to other emergency departments in the city.

People in need of immediatemedical attentionshould instead visit other emergency departments in the city.

"It's really not a concern from flames. It's actually the smoke conditions right now that we're trying to mitigate and we're trying to deal with," said Ottawa fire Chief Paul Hutt. "We're not going to leave until it is safe for everybody."

Hutt said the hydro vault where the fire took placeis"a compartment of energized equipment" that made it difficult to extinguish the fire.

About 75 firefightersand 25 firetrucks responded to the scene, he added.

The fire was declared under control at 5:26 p.m., butcrews were still working to ventilate the transformer room.