Montreal police searching for at least 6 people after fire
Police say six people remain missing since then A major fire broke out in a historic building in Old Montreal on March 16.
Officials are expected to address the media at 9 p.m. Saturday to provide an update on the fire, including steps to allow investigators access to the building. The address will be streamed live on CTV’s website.
One of the missing is Charlie Lacroix, 18, of Terrebonne, north of Montreal.
Those close to her say she was staying with a friend on the second floor in an Airbnb.
“My daughter’s friend told us she had been there the night before, so we went to the police station and found out she had called 911 twice in three minutes saying they couldn’t get out because there were no windows in the room.” said his father, Louis Philippe Lacroix.
“Hearing this news and having to tell my son and people is seriously the worst thing I could ever go through as a parent,” Lacroix said.
Friends and family of the teenager gathered at the scene of the fire on Saturday, where a makeshift memorial has been erected.
People started laying flowers in front of the apartment building where a big fire broke out on March 16, 2023. Six people remain missing and authorities fear their bodies may be buried under the rubble. (Olivia O’Malley/CTV News)
“I don’t believe it. I am in complete denial. I don’t want it to be true. I just want to wake up and it’s a bad dream,” Lacroix’s friend Kelly Ann Seguin said.
Lacroix said authorities have not found her daughter’s body, but members of the Montreal Fire Department (SSIM) and the Montreal Police Department (SPVM) arson squad held a news conference Saturday morning and confirmed that at least six people were missing and may be in the building. .
“In the last few hours, confirmed information received from various sources allows us to believe that there may be victims inside the rubble,” said SIM Captain Martin Guilbeau.
Among the missing is 75-year-old photographer Camille Maho, who lived in the building for 30 years.
CHALLENGES FOR RESEARCHERS
Firefighters have not yet managed to enter the building, where an architectural company and residential buildings were located.
“At this moment, it is not possible to carry out a safe search in the building, which must be secured first of all,” said Gilbo.
“Over the weekend, officials will work on a response plan that will allow our teams to conduct a safe search while trying to preserve the heritage structure,” he said.
Guilbeau said authorities still don’t know where or how the fire started, and an analysis of the 15-unit building on Place d’Youville is underway.
Montreal police arson commander Steve Belzile said investigators are focused on gathering information from people living in the building. He added that they have already met hospitalized people.
“At the moment we are not talking about arson, it has been transferred (to the police), because we have reasons to believe that there are victims, deaths.
Two of the nine injured people are still hospitalized at the burn center of the Université Hospital de Montréal (CHUM), Belzile said.
UNAUTHORIZED AIRBNB UNITS
Some of the apartments were Airbnb units.
Montreal city councilor Alain Vaillancourt is responsible for public safety, and he said there are no certificates issued for the building.
“Here in Ville Marie, there’s only a certain area where you can have Airbnbs in Saint Catherine [Street]; this is not one of them,” Vaillancourt said. “Ville Marie has never received an Airbnb permit here, and there have never been any Airbnb complaints in this building.
Alina Kuzmina and her husband were sleeping in a unit rented on Airbnb when the fire broke out.
They escaped by jumping from the basement window.
“Once I got out of the window, looked to the right, and saw a man who just jumped from the window of the second floor,” Kuzmina said.
He says they saw smoke coming from the door but never heard an alarm.
“If the fire alarm had gone off, we probably wouldn’t have had to risk our lives and maybe we would have had time to get more stuff because a lot of our stuff was left there,” he said.
Alina Kuzmina and her husband escaped through a basement window when the historic Old Montreal building caught fire on March 16, 2023. (Source: Alina Kuzmina)
With Canadian press files.
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