Over 130 firefighters responded to a five-alarm fire on St-Denis and Cherrier on Sunday morning.

A 911 call was placed at 6:45 a.m.

Approximately 10 people were forced from the building. Officials said one person was stuck but was safely removed from the three-story building.

 

The first floor of the building is taken up by Universel restaurant, while the other stories are residential. The fire started in the cellar of the building but firefighters said they were not sure what started it.

One fire fighter said the structure of the building made it particularly hard to extinguish the fire.

"In this kind of a building, which is an old building which has three floors which were built and renovated one on the other. The fire starts from the cellar, there's not many ways to get in, we have to open the floor to get the smoke out. It's a long process, it's hard, you can't see, you don't know where you're going. It was very hot, because the fire was a good part of the cellar. It gave us a lot of hard work."

No injuries were reported.

Rick Daigle, a regular at the restaurant, so the destruction was upsetting to witness.

"I got sick to my stomach," he said. "It's really, really sad."