‘I lost my best friend,’ granddaughter says after grandmother dies in Brampton highrise fire

Beatrice Vaisman reports the latest following a fatal highrise fire in Brampton, Ont., that claimed the life of one senior Thursday evening.

A woman who was nearly 100 years old has died after a fire broke out at a highrise in Brampton on Thursday night.

Emergency crews responded to an apartment building on Hanover Road, near Queen Street and Central Park Drive.

When crews arrived, they found the fire in a unit on the 14th floor. Peel police said crews located a woman inside without vital signs.

Despite life-saving measures, the woman was pronounced dead at the scene, Peel paramedics said.

The cause, origin and circumstances of the fire are unknown.

Police told CTV News that they were looking into whether cooking was the cause.

‘I lost my best friend,’ says granddaughter

Maria Allaham said she was working when she got a call from her brother about a fire in her grandmother’s unit.

“I wait until I finish my shift, and then I come here to find out. Then I talk to the officer, and then they explain to me everything,” Allaham told CP24 at the scene.

She said her 99-year-old grandmother’s name was Lourieh.

“I feel I lost my best friend,” an emotional Allaham said. “Now, where I’m going to go? Because I don’t have best friends. I don’t have nobody.”

She shared that she visits her grandmother every day, including earlier hours before the fire.

That’s why she was in shock and disbelief.

“I come every day, shower her, give her medication. We eat together. We do everything together,” she said, her voice breaking. “I come today, I did everything how I do every day like same routine.”

Her grandmother lived with her two sons.

Allaham said her grandmother’s place was a refuge.

“So now when I’m bored, I don’t know where I’m going to go. She was the place (I got to) when I feel the world is giving me a hard time,” Allaham said.

“I go, I put my head on her shoulder. I forget everything. She always pray for me and bless me.”

Allaham said people who got to know her grandmother used to call her “the queen.”

“She’s very lovely. If you see her, you will love her. She has very such a sweet smile,” she said.

Allaham shared that before she left her grandmother’s, she promised that they would do facial the next day.

“I say, okay, tomorrow I’m going to get the cream. I do facial. I take care of her so good, so good. But today I feel I didn’t do anything. I feel guilty.”

With files from CP24’s Beatrice Vaisman