Scarborough fire leaves one dead
Man couldn’t be roused from sleep as blaze engulfed home
Myles Yard was just recovering after jumping from a second-floor window and kicking in another ablaze downstairs when a stretcher passed by him. On it was his friend, Michael, lying unconscious.
Michael, who lived in the basement, hadn’t heard Yard trying to rouse him from his sleep as flames engulfed the Scarborough home about 6:30 a.m. Tuesday. While others battled for their lives, Michael — none of his housemates knew his last name and police haven’t confirmed his identity — died later in hospital.
“I watched them trying to bring him back,” Yard said, looking at the charred remains of the Birkdale Rd. home where he had been visiting his girlfriend. “I was so shaken I had to leave.”
By mid-morning, Yard had returned to the scene of the fire at Midland Ave. and Ellesmere Rd., which sent four to hospital, including Michael; another person who remains in critical condition; and two men, 56 and 35, who suffered minor injuries due to smoke inhalation and are expected to be released.
Firefighters estimated the property sustained between $200,000 and $300,000 worth of damage.
District fire Chief Russell Jardine, who was at the scene, said firefighters arrived that morning to find flames spitting from the basement. Once they had been put out, the smoky trek to the lower level, Jardine said, was “like going down a chimney.”
Fortunately, a handful of people in the residence’s upper levels escaped and took refuge at neighbour Yleana Gomez’s home, separated from the flaming house by only a driveway.
“I was nervous,” said Gomez, a mother of five, who was rushing to the airport to drop off a nephew when a frantic call from her son alerted her to the blaze.
“My son let everybody in(to) the house because some people had no shoes,” she said.
By the time she had returned, their street was filled with fire trucks, paramedics and police.
Though some neighbours labelled the dwelling a “halfway house,” Jason Bevan, who has lived there on and off for six years, described it as a simple home shared by many.
He called the house unsafe because of cockroaches, leaks, lack of insulation and a ceiling “about to fall in,” but said, “We were all good people. It was family-oriented.” How the fire began is still a mystery. Hours after the fire had been put out, Bevan told the Star he still hadn’t located his puppy, Lucky, who had somehow gone astray in the chaos. Firefighters said they rescued some cats and dogs from the house, but two perished in the blaze.
Bevan, mourning his “kind-hearted” friend Michael, said, “I wish nobody had died. Drowning or burning, I don’t think it gets worse than that.” With files from Evelyn Kwong and Michael Yang