The day after the fire which ravaged a century-old building in Old Montreal, the Minister of Public Security, François Bonnardel, indicated that the investigation into this event could be combined with that into the other fatal fire that occurred there. last year in the same sector.
According to the City of Montreal’s property assessment roll, the building where the suspicious fire occurred, which broke out during the night from Thursday to Friday, belonged to Emile Benamor, who also owned the heritage building. of Place D’Youville which was ravaged by a fire in March 2023. This blaze left seven victims.
“My office this morning [samedi] spoke to the chief coroner [Reno] Bernier. We will see how we could combine these two unfortunate events in the same investigation to speed up the process,” said Mr. Bonnardel during a press briefing Saturday afternoon, near the scene of the fire.
The blaze broke out around 2:40 a.m. Friday in a three-story building located on Notre-Dame Street East, near Bonsecours Street.
It was brought under control between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. in the early hours of Saturday morning, said spokesperson for the Montreal Fire Safety Service (SIM), George Bele.
The fire left two dead, confirmed the Montreal Police Service (SPVM), which is responsible for the investigation. The bodies were found and extricated from the rubble Friday evening, said the SPVM.
Mr. Bonnardel said that according to his information, there were no others missing.
In the afternoon on Saturday, the minister indicated that the police were beginning their investigation, while the last firefighters were leaving the scene.
Alain Vaillancourt, member of the executive committee responsible for public safety at the City of Montreal, reiterated during the same press briefing that the building where the fire took place was safe.
“The SIM announced [vendredi] that in the last year, they carried out inspections, there were non-compliances, they were corrected with formal notices. And the SIM judged that the building was safe,” he said.
Several people were able to escape unhurt from the building which houses a restaurant on the ground floor and a 19-room hotel on the second and third floors. The Red Cross went to the scene to offer assistance to the victims.
Robert Beauchamp, a communications volunteer with the Red Cross, said Saturday morning that 16 people were evacuated from the building where the fire broke out, 400 rue Notre-Dame Est. In addition, 22 families were evacuated from 430 rue Notre-Dame Est.
The mayor of Montreal, Valérie Plante, was sorry to see history repeating itself with the same owner, more than a year after the fire at Place D’Youville.
“It’s a situation that we find absolutely deplorable, that we would never wish for this kind of situation to occur twice in two years,” she declared at a press briefing Friday afternoon.
With information from Frédéric Lacroix-Couture