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Man dies in Canadian coffee shop 'wall of flames'

Posted on: Sunday, 2 April 2006, 20:11 CDT

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.

Source: REUTERS

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