A week after the fire that ravaged a building in Place D’Youville, in Old Montreal, several questions remain unanswered. Four bodies have so far been found, but three other victims are still missing.
For now, only one victim of the Old Montreal blaze has officially been identified. This is Camille Maheux, a 76-year-old photographer who had lived in the building for 30 years.
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The remains of the burnt building
If the three victims still missing are found in the next few days, the total death toll linked to this fire would then be seven victims. To find a more deadly fire in the metropolis, you have to go back almost 50 years ago, more precisely in January 1975.
On January 21 of that year, Richard Blass, nicknamed The Cat, entered the Gargantua bar. Several customers and its manager were then killed, before the business was set on fire. A total of 13 people died in the fire. Blass had escaped from Saint-Vincent-de-Paul penitentiary three months earlier. After a vast manhunt, on January 24, 1975, he was shot down by several bursts of bullets by the police, in Val-David, in the Laurentians.
Fires causing so many victims are rather rare. In fact, Montreal deplores a dozen deaths on average per year due to fire. The most recent data from the Montreal Fire Department (SIM) shows 12 fire deaths in 2022, 13 in 2021, 13 in 2020 and 12 in 2019. The deadliest year to date is 2011, with 17 deaths in fires.
In 2021, the most frequent causes of fires were smokers’ articles (3) or an electrical problem (2). The causes of five blazes remained “undetermined”, and three events are classified in the “Other” category. Investigations into fires causing death are usually entrusted to the SPVM, especially when criminal elements are detected.
The fire also revived the debate this week on Airbnb rental, since several people missing in the fire had rented their accommodation on the application, while this type of rental is illegal in Old Montreal. Thursday, the Minister of Tourism, Caroline Proulx, held a “tight” meeting with the leaders of the platform.
In the process, Airbnb announced that it will remove from its pages all accommodations that do not display a registration number from the Corporation de l’industrie touristique du Québec (CITQ), throughout the province, such as asked for it this week Quebec, the City of Montreal and other municipalities. They also asked for more inspectors from Quebec.
A heavier death toll unlikely
Although it remains “always a possibility”, the possibility of finding more than seven victims in the rubble of the building in Old Montreal ravaged by a serious fire is at the very least “improbable” at this stage of the investigation. investigation, Montreal police said on Friday.
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Martin Guilbault, Division Chief at the Montreal Fire Department, and Inspector David Shane of the SPVM.
“We have no information [selon laquelle] additional victims would be in the rubble, ”said Inspector David Shane, spokesperson for the Montreal Police Service, in the morning at a press briefing. “It’s always a possibility, but at this stage it seems unlikely to us,” he said.
Earlier this week, on Wednesday, the first victim of the fire in the Place d’Youville building was identified: Camille Maheux, a 76-year-old photographer who had lived in the building for 30 years. The same day, the police also confirmed in the evening that they had extricated two other bodies from the rubble of the building.
A second body had been located, then extricated from the building last Tuesday. However, his identity has not yet been confirmed. With the two bodies discovered on Wednesday evening, there would therefore still be three people missing among the rubble of the building.
“Increase the pace”
Recently, the arrival of a second crane has enabled the 20 firefighters and other patrollers to “accelerate the search work”. “It allowed us to remove large unstable parts, including steel beams and large parts of the roof. This will allow us to explore the building in more depth,” explained the division chief of the Montreal Fire Department (SIM), Martin Guilbault.
The latter maintains that the objective is to “increase the pace” of excavations, while ensuring the safety of the workers, who work systematically “above” the risks of collapse. “We think we might be able to save the facade of the building,” also mentioned Mr. Guilbault. For the rest, the identification process for the three other victims found continues, but it is still “not possible to provide an estimate of the time” that the process will take, according to Mr. Shane.
Three conditions must first be met, he recalled: the identification must first have been confirmed by two distinct methods, at least one of which is scientific, and expert opinions must have been carried out. Finally, the family must have been informed. Moreover, press briefings on the state of the research will no longer necessarily be done on a daily basis. They will be held only “during significant developments”.