After a six-alarm fire ravaged the historic Badminton and Racquet Club of Toronto last month, residents of a neighbouring condominium banded together to thank some of the firefighters that worked to contain it.

The fire, one of the biggest in the city in recent memory with more than 500 firefighters battling it, began the morning of Feb. 14 and kept firefighters on-scene all night, until early morning the next day.

Residents of the condo at 47 St. Clair Ave. W., just west of the Badminton and Racquet Club, sent a letter to Capt. Steve Green and their local fire hall to thank the firefighters for their hard work. Their condo, the WestClair, did not suffer any damages from the fire, said Malcolm Hamilton, one of the directors on the board of the condo.

“We believe that, if it were not for the perseverance and bravery of your firefighters and those of other stations in battling the flames, the WestClair could have easily been engulfed by the blaze,” the letter, signed by Paul J. Evraire, secretary of the board of directors for the condo, read.

Hamilton said residents also tried to organize a pizza lunch for the firefighters at their local fire hall, but discovered city policy did not allow for that. Instead, they raised funds for Camp Bucko, a camp for child burn victims.

“People were like, ‘What can we do?’ and it’s turned into quite the event where it was a tragedy yet now we’re closer to our firefighters over there and even everyone in the building is a little closer to each other,” Hamilton said. “So, it was quite something.”

Approximately $1,000 was raised for the camp, and a cheque was presented to Green and other firefighters on March 5.