MONTREAL (CP) -- A four-year-old girl and her grandfather died in a blaze early Friday that police are investigating after firefighters said they found traces of an accelerant in the home.
There were no smoke detectors, said district fire chief Jean-Louis Bachand. A woman and a two-year-old girl were injured but were expected to recover.
``We found traces of accelerant in the entrance so the investigation has been turned over to the police,'' Bachand said.
The fire started in the victims' apartment, one of five units in a two-storey block on a residential street, said Const. Olivier Lapointe, a Montreal police spokesman.
One tenant said the death toll from the overnight fire might have been higher if not for a neighbour, Karine Heneault, who ran door to door sounding the alarm.
``I don't know what would have happened if she hadn't woken me up,'' said Patricia Tetrault, 30. ``She saved my life.''
Tetrault said she was in a deep sleep when she heard a pounding at her door just after 3 a.m.
Her own smoke detector didn't work and there were none in the hallways of the building, Tetrault said.
By the time she came fully awake and stepped outside to see what was going on, flames were coming from an upstairs apartment, she said.
A couple who had custody of their two granddaughters lived in the 5 1/2-room flat, Tetrault said.
``I think they lost a son to cancer and their daughter to something else,'' she said. ``They went to Haiti to get the kids last year.''
As Tetrault threw on clothes to go outside, she heard a child's cries from upstairs but the cries soon stopped.
The grandmother managed to get out with the toddler but she couldn't bring out the older child, who was nicknamed Nana, Tetrault said.
``I saw her standing on the street, crying out, `Nana's dead, Nana's dead,' in Creole,'' Tetrault said, adding that the woman had suffered burns and was in shock.
Heneault's brother, Christian, rushed upstairs with a flashlight to try to find the missing child and the grandfather, 72.
His sister, meanwhile, alerted a woman and child living in the basement flat.
Tetrault sat, red-eyed, on the balcony of a neighbour's house Friday and watched arson investigators go in and out of her building.
``I often saw the grandmother going up and down those stairs with the girls,'' she said. ``She did a lot with them.
``One time, when we met on the stairs, she said, `It's their first winter here -- they aren't used to the cold.' ''
(CP-Montreal Gazette)
