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A woman banged her slipper against the window of a room in the burning Holiday Inn over and over, trying to shatter the glass.

Thirty two years later, this image still haunts Mike Zodarecky, a retired firefighter who helped battle a deliberately set fire in Greece, N.Y., that killed seven from the Toronto area and sent dozens from Ontario to hospital."},{"type":"mainart","data":{"fullWindowMainart":false,"type":"image","imageid":"896423","origImageSize":"1000x667","lastmodified":2700061000,"forceoriginal":false,"caption":"Mike Zodarecky was the second firefighter on the scene of a massive hotel fire in Greece New York on Nov. 26, 1978, that claimed the lives of 10 people, including seven Canadians.","source":"FOR THE TORONTO STAR","credit":"GLENN LOWSON","url":"/content/dam/thestar/news/crime/2010/11/24/push_on_to_solve_ny_arson_case_that_killed_7_canadians/firemainjpg.jpeg","renditions":[{"url":"https://images.thestar.com/37Vu_0tyVWFLj6bHJ0r-hRF3kyw=/1086x724/smart/filters:cb(2700061000)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/crime/2010/11/24/push_on_to_solve_ny_arson_case_that_killed_7_canadians/firemainjpg.jpeg","width":1086,"height":724,"scalefactor":109},{"url":"https://images.thestar.com/uLfk55WTsH_O-Wxe_taYbXy_is4=/1000x667/smart/filters:cb(2700061000)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/crime/2010/11/24/push_on_to_solve_ny_arson_case_that_killed_7_canadians/firemainjpg.jpeg","width":1000,"height":667,"scalefactor":100},{"url":"https://images.thestar.com/nVsZs0avIwTXngnYK55MKlJapJY=/968x646/smart/filters:cb(2700061000)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/crime/2010/11/24/push_on_to_solve_ny_arson_case_that_killed_7_canadians/firemainjpg.jpeg","width":968,"height":646,"scalefactor":97},{"url":"https://images.thestar.com/CP6Ok7XfbjpJ1qL318m-0nWIHGY=/850x567/smart/filters:cb(2700061000)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/crime/2010/11/24/push_on_to_solve_ny_arson_case_that_killed_7_canadians/firemainjpg.jpeg","width":850,"height":567,"scalefactor":85},{"url":"https://images.thestar.com/C4IhkbcGz8z529eE86pWZ5U4HXA=/650x434/smart/filters:cb(2700061000)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/crime/2010/11/24/push_on_to_solve_ny_arson_case_that_killed_7_canadians/firemainjpg.jpeg","width":650,"height":434,"scalefactor":65},{"url":"https://images.thestar.com/QzXR3fkBazsgDObkw4NGmUfdaf8=/605x404/smart/filters:cb(2700061000)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/crime/2010/11/24/push_on_to_solve_ny_arson_case_that_killed_7_canadians/firemainjpg.jpeg","width":605,"height":404,"scalefactor":61},{"url":"https://images.thestar.com/M5Ub7RSi_MhnX70XiC-tq7DIL7U=/480x320/smart/filters:cb(2700061000)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/crime/2010/11/24/push_on_to_solve_ny_arson_case_that_killed_7_canadians/firemainjpg.jpeg","width":480,"height":320,"scalefactor":48},{"url":"https://images.thestar.com/1VPImcXWCmG7qeyhDb90EhAI-mc=/400x267/smart/filters:cb(2700061000)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/crime/2010/11/24/push_on_to_solve_ny_arson_case_that_killed_7_canadians/firemainjpg.jpeg","width":400,"height":267,"scalefactor":40},{"url":"https://images.thestar.com/BOFqY2YC_BYiN_DAc0W9UUN14AQ=/320x213/smart/filters:cb(2700061000)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/crime/2010/11/24/push_on_to_solve_ny_arson_case_that_killed_7_canadians/firemainjpg.jpeg","width":320,"height":213,"scalefactor":32},{"url":"https://images.thestar.com/5-7ycJKDMEJ8nGZt6IKmBwLj3sQ=/93x62/smart/filters:cb(2700061000)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/crime/2010/11/24/push_on_to_solve_ny_arson_case_that_killed_7_canadians/firemainjpg.jpeg","width":93,"height":62,"scalefactor":9}]}},{"type":"ads_below"},{"type":"text","text":"

Investigators never caught the culprit. But survivors and residents of the town, a suburb of Rochester, still want the case solved.

Zodarecky, who in 1978 was a rookie firefighter, couldn’t reach the woman with his ladder.

Amid the screaming and the smoke, another firefighter promised to get the woman out. Zodarecky turned away to give medical attention to other victims."},{"type":"ad","display":"small-only","pos":"1","sizes":[[300,250]],"interstitial":true,"name":"MobileMiddleArticleBigBox"},{"type":"text","text":"

But later, as he beat down hotel room doors with a sledgehammer after the fire was extinguished, Zodarecky found the woman with the slipper. She was dead.

“There at the foot of the bed was this woman. Not rescued,” said Zodarecky, who was only 25 at the time. “It always haunts me.”

Zodarecky and local residents are calling for a renewed investigation into the cold arson case that killed 10 people in total and injured 34 in the early morning hours of Nov. 26, 1978.

The seven dead Canadians were from Brampton, North York and Etobicoke, who spent the night in Greece while shopping in nearby Rochester.

Residents like Zodarecky, who retired after 23 years of fighting fires, are still troubled by the thought that an arsonist who murdered 10 people may be walking free."},{"type":"articleRelated","display":"medium-up"},{"type":"slimcut"},{"type":"text","text":"

“It’s one of those un-discussed things . . . a black cloud that hangs over the town,” said Anthony Niccoli, who grew up in Greece and now lives in Sudbury. “Nobody was ever brought to justice on this.”

Niccoli started a Facebook page for residents and survivors to discuss what happened the night of the fire, as well as the subsequent investigation."},{"type":"ad","display":"small-only","pos":"2","sizes":[[300,250]],"interstitial":true,"name":"MobileMiddleBottomArticleBigBox"},{"type":"text","text":"

About 130 Canadians were staying in the hotel that night. Most had crossed the border on a bus tour.

The fire moved fast, beginning in a stairwell that joined two wings of the motel. Desperate guests jumped from their windows. At times, the flames were 100 feet high.

By the time firefighters arrived, it was out of control.

A 1979 report by the U.S. National Fire Protection Association said fire doors that would have slowed the spread of flames into the hotel’s west wing had been propped open.

As the flames reached higher, windows shattered and flowing oxygen fed the fire, which gutted the 91-room motel. There was no sprinkler system, which weren’t required back then.

Some hotel guests said they heard a fire alarm at about 2:30 a.m., but Carol Tupin of Hamilton wasn’t one of them.

Tupin, then 26, was visiting the state with her mother, aunt and friends to shop, a girls’ trip they took every year.

Tupin’s mother awoke to the sound of what she thought was furniture being dragged across the floor above.

“(My mother) looked outside and she could see the reflection (of the fire) on our tour bus, and realized she was looking at a reflection, and it was our building,” said Tupin, now 58, from her home in Hamilton.

“With that, she woke us up. From there, everything was so hectic.”

Firefighters pulled the women out the hotel room’s window and into -7C weather and loaded onto a bus to keep warm.

“There was one guy and he was all bloody. He was naked. He had pulled people out,” Tupin said. “I know my mother had pulled people out.”

Survivors, many weeping and wearing only nightgowns and pyjamas with no shoes, were eventually led across the street to another motel. Together, they watched the Holiday Inn burn.

“It stays with you,” Tupin said. “Who would light up a hotel they knew was full of people?”

There is still very little for investigators to go on 32 years later, said Greece police chief Todd Baxter.

“The investigation is still considered open,” Baxter said. A year ago, Monroe County’s arson task force reviewed the case to make sure investigators had not missed any leads.

“Over the years some rumours have come in . . . nothing factual,” Baxter said.

Two officers are currently responsible for the investigation. The fire remains the deadliest Monroe County — a vast swath of northwest New York state — has ever experienced.

“We’re poised. We’re ready to go,” Baxter said. “That’s our point of frustration. It was such a horrific incident. Any information we get, we’ll jump right on.”

There are no monuments or memorials to the fire victims in Greece.

A Red Lobster and another hotel stand where the Holiday Inn once did.

But Zodarecky doesn’t want people to forget.

On the Facebook page created about the fire, current and former residents have posted old newspaper articles, photos and memories from that bitterly cold morning in November.

Some write about how they’ve only started to cope with the trauma of living through the fire.

“For the people who were there, you can’t go to a fire and have people die and have it not affect you,” Zodarecky said. “People say it’s time to move on, to put it behind you … but can you imagine losing a family member and people saying get over it?”

Ontario fire victims:

Margaret Duncan, Etobicoke

Pamela Sagett, Etobicoke

Huguette Sundue, Brampton

Ruby Cushinan and her daughter, also Ruby Cushinan, North York

Mr. and Mrs. E.F. Farley, Etobicoke"},{"type":"trustbar"},{"type":"articleRelated","display":"small-only"},{"type":"text","text":""},{"type":"related_topics","tags":["greece","brampton"]},{"type":"newsletterbox"}],"assetTags":["holiday_inn","greece","york","holiday_inn","mike_zodarecky","ontario","firefighter","brampton","etobicoke","hospitality_industry"],"seoKeywords":"","promo":,"paywallMode":"metered","related":{"pubdays":0,"strategy":0},"seoHead":"Push on to solve NY arson case that killed 7 Canadians","readtime":6,"headline":"Push on to solve NY arson case that killed 7 Canadians","subheadline":"Thirty years ago, seven Canadians from the GTA who spent the night at a hotel after shopping in nearby Rochester were killed in a fire.","breadcrumbs":[{"label":"News","relurl":"/news","url":"https://www.thestar.com/content/thestar/news.html"},{"label":"Crime","relurl":"/news/crime","url":"https://www.thestar.com/content/thestar/news/crime.html"}],"authors":[{"author":"Allison Cross","credit":"Staff Reporter"}],"liftigImage":{"fullWindowMainart":false,"type":"image","imageid":"896423","origImageSize":"1000x667","lastmodified":2700061000,"forceoriginal":false,"caption":"Mike Zodarecky was the second firefighter on the scene of a massive hotel fire in Greece New York on Nov. 26, 1978, that claimed the lives of 10 people, including seven Canadians.","source":"FOR THE TORONTO STAR","credit":"GLENN LOWSON","url":"/content/dam/thestar/news/crime/2010/11/24/push_on_to_solve_ny_arson_case_that_killed_7_canadians/firemainjpg.jpeg","renditions":[{"url":"https://images.thestar.com/Ox39wEmg6FNPqYiFD7Caa5JN15g=/93x52/smart/filters:cb(2700061000)/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/news/crime/2010/11/24/push_on_to_solve_ny_arson_case_that_killed_7_canadians/firemainjpg.jpeg","width":93,"height":52,"scalefactor":9,"aspect":"wide"}]},"lastreplicated":"Wed., Nov. 24, 2010","seopublisheddate":"2010-11-24","seomodifieddate":"","totalParas":43,"additionalEvents":",event29","loaded":true,"comscore":"pageview_candidate","paywall":true}
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