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It will be Peter Hamilton’s job to sort all this blackened confusion into a pattern that makes sense, answering the basic question: What started it?

He hasn’t begun to answer this yet.

“Everything is on the table with respect to how the explosion transpired,” said Hamilton, an investigator from the Ontario Fire Marshal’s office.

“We are currently in the process of rendering the scene safe,” he told reporters. “We can confirm that there has been an explosion.”

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The 911 calls started coming in at 11 p.m.

There had been at least one explosion — confirmed by firefighters now — and witnesses say there were others.

Fire crews worked through the night, finally bringing the blaze under control around 4:30 a.m., but not before it had gutted a stretch of businesses that included a Mac’s Convenience store, a Silver Scissors hair salon, Brown’s Dry Cleaners, Beaver’s Mug coffee shop, Pizza Hut and Encino Taco Shop.

Andrew Peck, executive director of the Glebe Business Improvement Area, awoke in the middle of the night Friday and grabbed his phone to check the final score of the Ottawa Senators game. When he read an email about the fire, he got dressed and ran out the door.

When he arrived at the fire scene, directly across from the BIA office on Bank Street, he was shocked by the devastation.

“I still smell like smoke,” says Peck, peering out from his office window at the damaged structure across the street. “It looks like a bomb went off.”

Kate Burke, who lives on Fifth Avenue just 75 metres from the building, heard the blast around 11 p.m.

“I heard a massive explosion and glass shattering,” said Burke, who added that she then heard two men start yelling, “Oh f—, oh f—!”

Burke ran to her balcony, where she said she smelled chemicals in the air and saw “smoke everywhere.”

Eli Saikaley also raced to Bank Street just before midnight and couldn’t believe what he saw.

“I was numb,” Saikaley said Friday after looking at the remains of the Silver Scissors Hair Salon, which he owned with his cousin, Bruce.

“We’re the first salon in the Glebe. Thirty-six years.”

•••

Glebe resident Mike Valenti, 26, says he was walking along Bank late Thursday, looking for a cigarette.

Photo by Mike Carroccetto / Ottawa Citizen

“I decided to walk down to Irene’s (restaurant) and all of a sudden there was a big blast and I was showered with glass,” Valenti said.

Valenti said that, in the shock of the explosion, he didn’t even think he was injured.

“But I looked down and saw the blood on my hands and thought: ‘I guess I’m not OK.'”

Valenti was taken to The Ottawa Hospital for stitches “and glueing for the cuts on my head,” but was back at the scene Friday morning.

Ottawa Fire Services said one firefighter was also treated at the scene for minor injuries.