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Soviet Consulate in Montreal
January 1987 File Photo - Montreal (Qc) Canada - Soviet Consulate in Montreal Seriously Damaged in a Fire A blaze engulfed the Soviet consulate January 15, 1987, but diplomats kept firemen outside for 15 minutes while they grabbed documents and tried to put out the fire with extinguishers and buckets of snow, witnesses and fire officials said. No injuries were reported but the consulate was seriously damaged. Firemen evacuated nearby buildings and blocked off several streets as the fire burned out of control for three hours. The cause was not determined. At the height of the fire, flames shot from the roof and smoke billowed from windows on the top two floors of the building on Avenue du Musee, a quiet street lined with old mansions and an art museum on the southern slope of Mount Royal, the central hill that gives Montreal its name. The Montreal fire chief, Yvon Bineault, said a dozen employees were destroying documents when he finally got inside the building, and they refused to leave. ''We spoke to them in French, English and Russian, but they just sat there and looked,'' he said.
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