Man dies in Canadian coffee shop ‘wall of flames’

By Lars Paronen

TORONTO (Reuters) – A man was killed in a “wall of flames”
in a downtown Toronto coffee shop on Sunday, after a device
exploded inside a washroom, according to police and
eyewitnesses.

Eyewitness Jenny Phillips said she heard bangs — like pops
from a firecracker — and a scream “that will haunt me forever”
as she left the washroom area in the Tim Hortons shop, an
iconic Canadian coffee and doughnut chain recently spun off
from parent company Wendy’s International Inc.

She smelled burned powder, and saw there was a “wall of
flames” inside the men’s washroom before staff herded some two
dozen customers outside. “I thought the roof was caving in.
People were screaming,” she told Reuters.

Toronto police chief Bill Blair told reporters that a
device in the washroom had caused a flash fire, and the
unidentified male victim had suffered severe burns.

“It appears that there has been a very hot and intense fire
in the enclosed area within the washroom,” Blair said. “We are
still very preliminary in our investigation to determine the
cause of this fire, and we are still determining whether or not
this was a purposeful act or an accident.”

Police closed off a busy block close to one of Toronto’s
main shopping districts for a large part of the day as they
investigated the cause of the fire.

They used a robot to trigger a controlled explosion after
finding a suspicious package near the coffee shop, but this
package was harmless.

“It appears there was a device, but we don’t know whether
the person brought it in with him, or it he was an innocent
party, or if he was a suicide, we just don’t know,” Staff
Sergeant Don Cole said of the device inside the restaurant.

“It’s not something that just blew up by itself, it was
some device.”

Police also evacuated a second Tim Hortons further away
from Toronto’s downtown core after a suspicious package was
reported, but Cole said that seemed to be merely a precaution.