A late night fire has claimed the life of a 7-year-old Brome Lake girl after a frantic effort from her father to rescue her.

The call came in at nine minutes past midnight early yesterday morning. Brome Lake firefighters arrived at 29 Frizzle only to find the two-storey home engulfed in flames and a desperate rescue attempt was underway. According to the SQ’s Sylvain Ares, home owner, Hugues Nadeau made a fire before heading off to bed.
“At some point he woke up because of the smoke was filling the house and went downstairs to find out what was the matter.”
Ares says Nadeau thought he had fixed the problem and had aired out the house before going back to bed.
“But either he hadn’t fixed it or the problem started again and when he woke up again the house was full of smoke.”
Nadeau got out of the house and put a ladder up to the second floor window of his 5-year-old son. He called his name and the boy came to him, and was carried down to safety. He then took the ladder to his daughter’s window and climbed up calling her name. However, she didn’t respond and the smoke was so thick and intense, he couldn’t get into her window to get her. In his desperation he ran to the neighbour’s house to get help but the fire was too intense to do anything but watch in anguish. Nadeau was alone at home with his two children. The children’s mother was in Montreal at the time. Both the father and son were hospitalized with smoke inhalation and the father suffered an injured knee. SQ investigators along with their regional investigation unit will continue to investigate the cause of the blaze. It’s not known if there were smoke detectors in the house at the time.

By Jessica Brown
Brome Lake

Thursday, October 30, 2008