Fire torches Pierrefonds apartment complex

BY ANDY BLATCHFORD

andy.blatchford@transcontinental.ca

Pierrefonds residents are trying to pick up the pieces after a five-alarm fire ripped through an apartment complex last Thursday.

“I don’t have much in life, but everything I have is in there,” said uninsured first-floor tenant Susan Lewis, as she watched firefighters tear through her apartment to make sure the fire was extinguished.

“I have somewhere to stay, but a lot of people don’t.”

The blaze started after a tenant fell asleep while a pan of oil was left to overheat on the stove, a Montreal fire department spokeswoman said.

Around 100 firefighters from several stations battled the blaze for three hours as the afternoon sun beat down, said Melanie Drouin of the Montreal Fire Service.

She said four firefighters were treated for heat exhaustion.

“The work conditions were extremely difficult because of the heat,” Drouin said.

About 50 people were evacuated from the building, which sits near the corner of Pierrefonds Boulevard and St. Barnabas Street.

Police said a 62-year-old man was transported to hospital after jumping from his balcony to escape flames spreading through his apartment.

He suffered first- and second-degree burns on his face and neck, Const. Dan Maheu of Montreal police Station 3 said.

“All of a sudden fire shot through and he had to jump,” said Lewis, who has lived in the 84-unit building for the last five years.

“He jumped from the second floor. I was standing right beside him when he landed. He landed on his back and his eyes were open and I figured he was a goner.”

Some residents of the complex were treated for smoke inhalation, said Urgences Santé supervisor Gary McHugh.

Tenant Kim McQuire was in her third-floor apartment with her 13-month-old child when she heard a “bunch of little explosions” and then the fire alarm.

McQuire, who lived directly above the unit where the fire started, escaped with her infant son, but had to leave her two cats behind.

“I’m pretty sure I lost everything,” she said while watching black smoke billow from the top of her apartment.

As Brian Lee was returning to the Crestview Gardens building, he also saw the man jump from the balcony. Lee helped pull him to safety.

“He had trouble breathing, but they (paramedics) gave him oxygen and now he’s at the hospital,” said Lee, as he cradled a black long-haired cat he saved from the building.

Samir Abuqare, a resident of the three-floor complex for almost seven years, said he was sleeping when the fire alarm went off.

A neighbour phoned to wake him up.

“This building has had so many (false) fire alarms, so many times,” he said.

“Something has to be done.”

Nicole Taylor heard about the fire and went to pick up her brother’s dog from his apartment, which is close to where the fire started.

“Lucky,” a husky/Labrador mix, was trapped inside the unit while firefighters fought the blaze. He could be heard barking from the street.

A distraught Taylor tried to enter the building to get the dog, but firefighters stopped her.

“I can hear him going nuts,” she said, as tears rolled down her cheek.

One resident of the brown-bricked building, who didn’t want to be named, said most of tenants receive social assistance and few have insurance.

Maheu said three apartments on the second floor and six on the third were destroyed. Many others were damaged by water.

In all, around 25 apartments were affected and 23 families spent up to three days at a hotel in St. Laurent, said Pierrefonds / Roxboro spokeswoman Johanne Palladini.

The Red Cross paid for the hotel and supplied food and clothing coupons for residents.

On Monday, tenants still in need of a place to stay had the option to go to a YMCA in Montreal, Palladini said.

She said members of the Pointe Claire Volunteer Rescue Unit were also present at the scene.ꆱ