An abandoned hotel in downtown Montreal was severely damaged by fire on Friday morning.

At 5:30 a.m. firefighters arrived on the scene of the building near the intersection of St-Antoine West and de la Montagne.

The fire was upgraded to three-alarm at around 6:30 a.m. Electricity in the area has been switched off and traffic has been closed between St-Antoine West, St-Jacques, de la Montagne and Peel.

Roughly 100 firefighters were dispatched to the scene. As of 7:00 a.m., firefighters said the building’s instability has kept them from entering the structure.

The fire has spread to an adjacent building, also abandoned.

One fire chief said several squatters were seen leaving the building and may have been the cause of the fire.

"When we arrived here, flames were coming out of the building and as we started to put water on it, squatters started to evacuate from there," said Chief of Operations Francis Leduc. "We went inside to make sure nobody else was inside and then we kept fighting the fire."