Site of fatal Old Montreal fire had been flagged by safety inspectors, documents show

Documents obtained by CTV News suggest the site of the fatal fire in Old Montreal last month had been flagged by city safety inspectors. 

On March 16, a massive fire ripped through a three-storey apartment building, triggering a major rescue operation as firefighters helped those inside escape the flames. Victims were pulled from the building and others were airlifted to safety.

Not everyone made it out. In the days that followed, authorities located seven bodies from the rubble. Most of the victims were visitors, renting out the units for short-term stays, and one woman had lived there for three decades. 

Reports from the Montreal fire department provided to CTV through an Access to Information request described problems with alarms in the building. 

In February, 2019, an inspector identified an issue with the fire alarm. According to the report, the alarm needs to reach a certain detectable decibel level inside the apartment. The inspector wrote that the building did not conform to that rule.

On a follow-up visit in November, 2020, the inspector indicated that the problem hadn't been fixed. 

CTV News reached out to the building owner, Emile Benamor, and his lawyer, Alexandre Bergevin, to respond to the reports, and to ask whether the alarm issue had been fixed since the inspection was made. Neither of them provided an immediate response.

In a previous interview, Bergevin told CTV the building was up to code. He said his client, Benamor, replaced the central alarm system in 2019 and insisted maintenance workers checked it was working the morning of the fire.

Flowers and messages are shown at a makeshift memorial near the site of a building that was gutted by a fire in Montreal, Thursday, March 23, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes

Following the fire, some survivors told CTV News they did not hear a fire alarm.

"I did see a fire alarm, like the round tablet, physically, two of them in the unit, but none of them had actually went off," claimed Alina Kuzmina in an interview in March.

"It is also the obligation [of] the leasee to have one and to make sure it's working," said Bergevin in his interview, also in March. 

CTV has also reached out to the City of Montreal for comment, but did not immediately hear back.

An earlier inspection in 2018 raised several issues with the building regarding safety signage, security lighting and smoke detectors -- all of those issues had been resolved by the second visit in September of that year. 

CORONER INVESTIGATING, LAWSUIT REQUESTED

Earlier in March, Quebec Coroner Géhane Kamel was appointed to chair an inquiry into the seven people who died in the fire.

"The public inquiry aims to shed light on the probable causes and circumstances of the deaths of Ms. Camille Maheux , Ms. An Wu , Ms. Dania Zafar , Ms. Saniya Khan, Ms. Charlie Lacroix , Mr. Nathan Sears and Mr. Walid Belkahla," read a press release following the appointment.

Following the inquiry, Coroner Kamel may issue recommendations to avoid loss of life in future, similar situations. 

Randy Sears, the father of one of the victims, has launched a $22-million class-action lawsuit against the building's owner, the man believed to have rented out several units, and Airbnb, alleging three defendants were negligent.

-- Published with files from CTV's Matt GIlmour