Officials are pleading with people to make sure their smoke detectors are working after a deadly house fire last week in northwest Brampton left a family “heartbroken” and “shattered.”
“I implore with each of you to test your smoke alarms today and practice your home fire escape plan. You only have a precious 60 seconds to escape a fire, and that time should be spent following your escape plan, not preparing it,” Ontario Fire Marshal Jon Pegg said on Monday morning.
“This event is a stark reminder of the devastation that fire can cause.”
Pegg, who cleared the scene on Sunday evening, added that investigators have found smoke alarms in the home but would now need to determine if they were working at the time of the fire.
His plea was echoed by Ontario’s Solicitor General Michael Kerzner on Monday morning.
“It’s a tragedy beyond measure. … In the end of the day there’s a requirement, I think on all of us, all Ontarians, that in our homes we must have working smoke detectors, we must have fire extinguishers, we must discuss with our own children — I have three — as to how to escape if a house caught fire,” he said.
Pegg said so far this year there have been 92 fatal fires in Ontario this year, that claimed the lives of 106 people.
On Monday, Peel Regional Police, Brampton Fire and Emergency Services, and the Office of the Fire Marshal provided an update on last week’s fatal fire in Peel Region, which broke out on Nov. 20 at around 2:15 a.m. at a semi-detached house on Banas Way, near McLaughlin and Remembrance roads, just south of Mayfield Road.
Police said four members of the same family, a “young toddler” and four women, died in the fire.
The day of the fire, emergency responders said they found two people dead: one inside the residence and another who was just outside of it.
Crews then spent several days sifting through the wreckage of the burned-out home for three unaccounted for people.
On Friday, they found the remains of a third adult in the nearly demolished home.
Officials announced that they recovered of a fourth person, a child, on Monday.
Four other relatives, including a five-year-old boy, were critically injured after jumping from a second-floor window to escape the fire. They remain in hospital in life-threatening, but stable, condition, police said on Monday.
“Sadly, one of the patients at hospital of the four was pregnant. She underwent emergency surgery, delivered that baby, and the baby has since passed,” Bell said.
The third missing individual, who has now been identified as Jugraj Singh, was found unharmed. He was away from the house at the time of the fire and was located safe in the hospital with his family, Const. Tyler Bell said.
Two other people lived in a basement unit in the home but are fine, police said.
“We’re all just very sad for the family. We’re doing our best to uncover answers in hopes that whatever we whatever we learn, can help prevent something like this,” Bell said on Monday afternoon.
Singh’s wife, who was eight-months along, lost her baby. The five-year-old boy in the hospital is his son.
“The young boy, I’m pleased to announce, is with his dad and is doing quite well, and he’s being treated very well at SickKids,” said Bell, who noted that investigators have not found any evidence of criminality.
Singh said on a crowdfunding page that he was at work when the blaze erupted.
He’d previously shared the names of his four relatives who died in the fire, but has since added one more name to that list: “My unborn baby, after my wife, Arshveer, who was pregnant, survived by jumping out of a window, but suffered severe injuries.”
Singh went on to describe his family’s collective heartache, saying that aside from losing four relatives, and having four others critically injured, they also lost “everything in the house — personal belongings, clothing, passports, insurance documents, and other essential papers” in the fire.
“Nothing was left,” wrote Singh, who said he is also hoping to raise enough funds to repatriate his loved ones’ bodies back to India.
Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown has said that the home is owned by an “absentee landlord,” who had been granted a permit to construct second basement unit but had failed to request an inspection for completed work for six years.