MAJOR FIRE AT SENIORS' HOME
Death believed to be accidental
One person died and seven people were taken to a hospital after a fire broke out Sunday morning at a social housing unit for elderly people in the Sud-ouest borough.
The fire started around 9 a.m. on the sixth floor of Habitations Angers on Galt St., near Angers St. The building offered low-rent housing for the elderly and is run by the city of Montreal. But the damage to the building was so severe a Montreal fire department engineer ordered all firefighters out of the building Sunday afternoon.
Department Chief Patrick Fournel said firefighters managed to search the seven-storey building, from the fifth floor down for pets that were left behind as the building was quickly evacuated.
The firefighters then prepared to venture back in and gather medication for those who urgently needed it when the engineer declared the building was structurally unsound.
Montreal police spokesperson Raphaël Bergeron said the cause of the fire appears to be accidental, but it will still be investigated by the arson squad because of the fatality. He also said the person who died was a woman who was found unconscious inside the apartment where the fire originated.
Urgences-santé sector chief Sylvain Lafrance said 13 people were evaluated at the scene for smoke inhalation and five refused to be taken to a hospital.
In a message sent via Twitter, Premier François Legault offered his condolences to the loved ones of the deceased. He also wrote Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Andrée Laforest will look for new housing for the people unable to return to their apartments.
Marguerite Blais, the minister responsible for seniors, also stated on Twitter she will work with Laforest to determine what help is required for the people affected.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante tweeted her thoughts were with those who lost their homes and borough mayor Benoît Dorais told reporters that “all of the people will be relocated (on Sunday) to hotels for 72 hours.”
Fournel said the blaze started on the sixth floor of the seven-storey building, which has 105 units, and it was extinguished in less than three hours. A few residents of the building had to be rescued from their balconies by firefighters using ladders, he said.
More than 150 firefighters were called in to extinguish the blaze.
It was first classified as “onealarm” and the fire department advised it might have to cut power to the surrounding area. But within less than an hour, the fire department reported it was a five-alarm blaze. Fournel said the fire was declared a five-alarm blaze because of the large number of apartments in the building and because many of the people inside have reduced mobility.
The fire chief said it appears the blaze was started by someone who was cooking. He noted cooking equipment has become the No. 1 cause of fires in the city during the pandemic as more people cook at home.
The building is located in the Côte-st-paul part of the Sudouest borough and is owned by the Office municipal d'habitation de Montréal. It has been managed by the city since 1978.