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After a terrifying hour watching sections of Kingston, Ont., turn to ashes below him, a trapped crane operator was saved Tuesday afternoon in a dramatic helicopter rescue.

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“The poor gentleman was quite scared, and hanging on for dear life, as we say, so he had to be convinced to let go and give himself up to the search and rescue technician,” said Lt. Col. Jean Bernier, commanding officer of CFB Trenton-based 424 Transport and Rescue Squadron, which dispatched the CH-146 rescue helicopter.

The crane operator had begun his day at an under-construction block of student housing, when, at 2:30 p.m., the wooden structure burst into flames.

As fire stations scrambled throughout Kingston, as well as neighbouring Loyalist and Napanee, firefighters came upon towering walls of flame dwarfing anything in the surrounding area.

Witnesses reported hearing scattered explosions from within the blaze as fiery debris rained down. Power was cut in a roughly three-block radius of the blaze, and public transit buses were marshalled to evacuate all homes and workplaces in the immediate vicinity.