The Mississauga "saga"

Abstract

At approximately seven minutes to midnight on Saturday, November 10, 1979, a Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) train travelling from Windsor to Scarborough, Ontario, was derailed in an industrial area in the centre of Mississauga in Peel County (near Toronto). The accident was attributed to an overheated axle bearing on a propane tank car. The resultant fire which ignited the gas created a huge column of fire that lit up the sky. Firefighters noticed the flames from their stations. The nine fire stations in Mississauga were alerted and the first units arrived on the scene at 2355 hrs. (In 15 minutes, 55 firefighters were on the scene, and within the next half hour there were 110). This was the start of what was to result in the largest peace-time evacuation in recorded history. What follows is an account of the events that took place during the tense days that followed, and includes information available as of 17 December 1979.