An eight-year-old Quebec boy remains in hospital after surviving an apartment fire that claimed the life of his parents and two siblings.
The fire broke out Tuesday at 2:30 a.m. in an apartment building in Les Coteaux, Que., a small town located approximately 60 kilometres southwest of Montreal.
Quebec provincial police say Patrick Gagnon, 37, Karine Desrochers-Gauthier, 32, and their four-year-old daughter Lorie died in the blaze.
Their two-year-old son, Felix, died later in hospital, while his brother Matthis, 8, remains in critical but stable condition in a Montreal hospital.
Mariette Lalonde Desrochers, Karin's grandmother, said she is “living an unimaginable hell.”
Desrochers, who lives in the same apartment building, said she ran upstairs after she heard a loud scream.
“I opened the door and tried to go in but there was a wall of smoke,” she said. “We tried but there was nothing we could do.”
She then ran downstairs and called 911, but by the time firefighters arrived, all five family members were unconscious.
Although the cause of the fire is still under investigation, firefighters believe the blaze was started by a lit cigarette.
Lac St-François fire chief Michel Pitre said firefighters saw no smoke detectors in the apartment.
Desrochers said that the smoke detectors in the building often go off when people are cooking, so many take them down.
Pitre urged people to keep their smoke detectors connected.
“They don’t stop fires, but they save lives,” he said.
Friends of the family have set up a Facebook page to help support Desrochers’ eight-year-old grandson as he fights for his life.
Meanwhile, an apartment fire has devastated another family in Edmonton just days before Christmas.
Fundraising efforts are underway for two young boys after their parents were killed in the fire on Sunday.
Fire crews were called to an apartment building in north Edmonton just before 3 a.m. on Sunday after a neighbour smelled smoke. The couple was found in the living room of the suite.
Friends have identified the victims as Roseann Deleeuw, 26, and Jeremy Grambo, 28.
The couple was rushed to hospital in serious condition where officials say they both died of smoke inhalation.
It is the believed the fire started on a stove.
“At a fire scene, it’s very difficult at any time of the year, but it’s amplified when it’s in the holiday season,” said Edmonton fire chief Ken Block.
Deleeuw and Grambo had two young sons, a 4-year-old, and a 10-month-old,who were staying with their grandparents the night of the fire. Friends have set up a GoFundMe.com page to collect money for the two boys.
