A blended family of six people, including four young children, perished on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, when their house was reduced to ashes, in Saint-Jacques, in Lanaudière.
Firefighters and the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) initially found four bodies in the rubble, but the toll increased late Thursday afternoon, when two other remains were discovered.
A baby born in early December is among the victims.
The SQ has not confirmed the identity of the dead.
But according to our information, the house on rang du Cordon belonged to Alex Guillemette, 27, who lived there with his wife, Katherine Bouchard, and her four children.
Messages of surprise, pain and condolences swept through social media on Thursday. A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to help fund the entire family’s funeral.
A neighbor, Mélanie Jalbert, said she heard detonations around 1 a.m. before realizing that her neighbors’ house was on fire. She then dialed 911 to call for help.
However, the house quickly collapsed due to the violence of the fire.
“Totally Destroyed”
“The priority is to identify the victims,” explained Sergeant Éloïse Cossette, spokesperson for the SQ.
Pathologists combed the rubble all day to find the bodies.
“You have to understand that the house is a total loss,” added Sergeant Cossette. It’s totally destroyed. The victims are not identifiable. Formal identification will have to be done in the laboratory. »
For the moment, we have not found any suspicious elements, but several hypotheses are considered to explain the tragedy.
Sergeant Éloïse Cossette, spokesperson for the SQ
The mayoress of Saint-Jacques, Josyanne Forest, went to the scene to see the extent of the damage.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, THE PRESS
The Mayor of Saint-Jacques, Josyanne Forest
“We are a small community,” she said. When I received the call to warn me of the fire and that there were also people who had died, it shook me. I find it difficult to know that there are children among the victims. »
It was first reported that the burnt house was in Sainte-Julienne, but it is rather at the limits of the municipality of Saint-Jacques, on rang du Cordon.