DEVASTATING FIRE
Three people died and 11 more were hospitalized after a fire that apparently started in a basement kitchen destroyed a Longueuil apartment building on Saturday.
A fire that killed three people in an apartment building in Longueuil on Saturday was a cooking fire that began in the basement, police said Sunday.
The victims were a couple in their 40s and the mother of one of the two, who is believed to have been in her 60s.
Eleven people were hospitalized, some with injuries they sustained in jumping from balconies to escape the flames, said Longueuil police spokesperson Constable Ghyslain Vallières.
On Sunday afternoon Vallières said that investigators had determined that the blaze began in the basement of the four-storey, 16-unit structure on Toulouse St., near Plessis St. and that it was a cooking fire.
He said investigators spent the day Sunday taking statements from tenants who could not be interviewed Saturday because they were being treated for injuries. He said the investigation would continue in the coming days.
The building is owned by Hassan Guillet, the spokesperson for the Council of Quebec Imams. On Friday, Guillet spoke to several reporters after Alexandre Bissonnette was sentenced in Quebec City for the murders of six men he shot at a mosque. Bissonnette automatically received a life sentence and, on Friday, a judge ruled he must serve 40 years before he becomes eligible for parole. The Crown had requested he be required to serve 150 years but the judge disagreed. Afterward, Guillet said, on behalf of his community: “It seems to me the wound is still open.”
On Saturday, Guillet said he didn’t believe the fire was an act of arson or one intended to target him. He said his son, Omar, manages the building and that very few people know that he owns it.
Omar Guillet said he had received no information so far to suggest the fire was an act of arson.
“I am currently calling all of the renters to see if they are okay, to see if everyone is healthy. There have been deaths and people have been injured. It has been very difficult,” he said.
He said he believed that the couple who perished were parents of a child who was forced to jump from the burning building and was seriously injured in the process.
About 80 firefighters were called in to fight the fire and some tenants had to be rescued from the burning building.
Vallières said firefighters requested several buses to handle those forced to flee their apartments to escape the flames.
“There was no alarm. I woke up and, when I did, I opened the door and flames headed toward me,” said one young woman, wrapped in a blanket supplied by the fire department as she stood outside and surveyed the damage to the place she called home. “So I closed the door and opened it again and I yelled ‘Go! Leave! There is a fire!’”
She said she had jumped out a window to escape.
“There are a lot of problems with this building. There are alarms that go off for no reason. And now, in a serious situation, the alarm didn’t go off,” said the woman, who refused to give her name to reporters. She also said her boyfriend suffered third-degree burns, including to his face, and was taken to a Montreal hospital.
The blaze spread throughout the structure, which was later demolished.
Vallières said the strong wind, which complicated investigators’ efforts, helped spread the fire quickly.
Michel Hugerot, a division chief with the Longueuil fire department, said firefighters had received the first call at 1:15 a.m. and that the fire had probably started much earlier.
“When we arrived, the fire was already underway in the basement and the first floor. We evacuated everyone we could and we couldn’t get to the third floor right away and there were people still there,” he said. “The building is a complete loss.”
Hugerot said he didn’t know yet if the building’s alarm system worked.
In October of 2016, fire destroyed an apartment building just a few doors away from Saturday’s fire, at Toulouse and Perigny Sts. That structure is being rebuilt.
There are a lot of problems with this building … And now, in a serious situation, the alarm didn’t go off.