They say a lot can happen in a year. It was one year ago today that flames raced through the CTV Ottawa newsroom on Merivale Road, destroying the building and uprooting our staff from their home of nearly 50 years.
Only a security person was in the building at the time of the fire. Nobody was injured, and the cause of the blaze was never determined. Ottawa's fire chief says it's quite likely we'll never know exactly what happened.
"The significant amount of electrical equipment contributed to the heat of the fire and made it almost impossible to determine a cause," said fire chief John deHooge.
The fire spread quickly through the building at about 4:30 a.m. It destroyed the newsroom and damaged some of the station's video archives. The heat was so intense it even melted computer monitors and television sets.
However, the path of the fire spared some areas. In the midst of the destruction, a white coffee mug remained untouched on a reporter's desk. Even papers stayed pinned up on some cubicles.
For nearly 50 years, the building was home to CTV Ottawa. The operations moved there in March 1961. Now, the building is boarded up and abandoned.
"Today, I'm sad, but not nostalgic. That building is not CJOH -- CJOH is the hundreds of talented people who created quality programs and local news," longtime CTV anchor Max Keeping said on Monday. He retired and signed off for the last time shortly after the fire.
Coun. Maria McRae says the area has changed a lot since the fire. A massive shopping development has opened just down the street. And a sign at the former CTV site announces more shopping planned for the neighbourhood.
"We know there could be a market for shopping in that area, but the impact on traffic could be severe and we need to talk about that," McRae said.
Despite the challenges, the CTV news team never missed a show. We went live from the parking lot across the street at 6 p.m. on the night of the fire. At 11:30 p.m., we broadcast our first show from our new home at 87 George St. in the Byward Market, where our operations will stay.
"This is now our new home, we've moved on, there's interesting things ahead and that's part of our past now," said CTV News at Noon anchor Michael O'Byrne.
Now, CTV has a new set, a new chief anchor, and a new news director. Plans are also underway to transform the Byward Market studios into something bigger and better.
"We're waiting to hear back on the exact framework on what this building will look like down the road and the timeline for that, and we anticipate we'll get that soon," said news director Peter Angione.
Meantime, we continue to move forward, keeping in mind those fond memories of our past.
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Joanne Schnurr
