Unattended cigarette may be cause of Montreal fatal fire that left mom, daughter dead

The teens were taken to hospital and investigators hope to meet with them later to find out what transpired inside the unit.

Montreal police arson investigators took over the probe Saturday because of the deaths.

Brabant says investigators are working with a hypothesis that a forgotten cigarette sparked the fire.

“There’s still analysis that has to be done by investigators to confirm all that,” Brabant said. “The first hypothesis we are looking at is a cigarette that was forgotten that caused the fire.”

A small collection of stuffed animals sat at the front door of the building on Duff Court Street and hand-drawn pictures were taped to the glass after investigators opened up a large perimeter.

No one else was injured in the fire.

The Montreal fire department said they came face to face with an intense blaze when they arrived at the scene.

Operations chief Matthew Griffith said when firefighters arrived, the blaze was intense enough that 70 firefighters were called to combat it.

“There was a smoke alarm in the apartment,” Griffith said. “Was it functional or not, it’s difficult to determine for now because of the intensity of the flames and the heat at the arrival of firefighters.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 9, 2019.

Sidhartha Banerjee, The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Unattended cigarette may be cause of Montreal fatal fire that left mom, daughter dead

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