A firefighter on an aerial ladder confronts a wall of flame at a major blaze on Glebe Ave. on Monday, Jan. 19. (ERROL McGIHON/QMI Agency)

OTTAWA -- Dozens of people are homeless after a four-alarm fire gutted an Ottawa apartment complex Monday afternoon.

Emergency crews were called to the three-storey structure at 114-116 Glebe Ave., between O’Connor and Bank streets, at about 1:40 p.m. and arrived to find smoke billowing out of the 18-unit building. Flames and heavy smoke continued to roil out of the building for over three hours before a crew of more than 70 firefighters began to get the upper hand.

Building superintendent Randy Young said he was moving items out of the basement when he smelled smoke and climbed the stairs to investigate.

“As soon as I came out the second and third floors were engulfed in flames,” Young said. “I ran down the stairs and called 911 and then I got them all out. I knocked on everybody’s doors.”

Young said firefighters were able to rescue at least two dogs, but a few cats are missing.

Bev O’Hara, who lived on the second floor for more than four years, said she ran outside when she heard the fire alarm going off. She said the alarm goes off a lot and she was surprised this wasn’t another false alarm. She then ran upstairs to her apartment to try to get her three cats.

“Then I thought, ‘What am I doing? I can’t worry about them right now, I gotta go tell everybody,’” she said. She ran down and banged on everybody’s doors yelling, “This time it’s a fire, there’s smoke coming off the roof, get out.”

By the time she and everyone else evacuated the building it was too late to save her cats.

“They’re history. The best I can hope is they died right away and they’re not in there freaking out.”

Another tenant, Allyson Merrison, 40, fled the flames with her common-law husband, two of their four children who were at home and the family dog.

“The fire alarms go off a lot, so we wanted to make sure it was a real one,” she said.

When she looked into the hallway, Merrison smelled smoke and another tenant yelled at her to get out. Her two older children were at school.

“People are amazing,” Merrison said. “One lady offered me cash, people have offered my family a place to stay. One lady offered us furniture.”

She said a local pet food store offered her food for the dog, named Trouble, and provided a leash for him.

Crews originally tried to battle the flames from inside the residence, but had to pull out due to the intense flames and smoke, which quickly spread through the building. The building is right next to a large, multi-story commercial structure at the corner of Bank and Glebe, and is partially obstructed by some large trees in the front.

It is not immediately known how many people lived in the building but fire officials said everyone had been accounted for and there were no injuries. Seventeen of the building’s 18 units were occupied.

A demolition crew moved in late Monday evening to knock walls down so fire crews could douse any hot spots that remained. There is no indication of a cause, nor a damage estimate at this point said the fire department’s spokesman Pierre Savary.

justin.sadler@sunmedia.ca