Survivor of Old Montreal fire share details of the night 7 lost their lives

Carling Sioui is a survivor of the fatal fire that ravaged this three-story condo building in Old Montreal. She says she was staying the night in her friend’s Airbnb on the 15th of March before the fire broke out at 5:45 a.m., on the 16th. An experience she says she’s still recovering from.

Sioui and her friend Johannes had been awoken by fire alarms – thinking nothing of it – until they heard screams from others staying in the building, once they opened their unit door – black smoke had filled the hallways and was starting to enter their unit.

“Our alarm started ringing. We heard screams, we heard throwing. We heard like just a lot of commotion. We were like, okay, now this is real. We got to go,” Sioui explained.

“When we saw the smoke in the doorway we realized, okay, okay, we might actually not survive this.

“We tried to go by the door. That didn’t work ran to the window, and tried to open the one left. It didn’t open like it was sealed shut,” she continued.

They then tried another window, which she says was taped shut making it possible for them to open it. Then stand on a small ledge about 10 metres from the ground waiting for help to arrive. Sioui says, in total there were seven individuals standing on the ledge waiting to be rescued.

“We could hear the people in the other rooms trying to get out. And they basically had to use objects to break their windows open because all of their windows were sealed.”

Firefighters eventually came to the scene and got her and others standing on the ledge down. She says three minutes later, the fire had taken over the second floor where the Airbnb was located. She and Johannes were taken to a hospital and treated for smoke inhalation.

Sioui says although she is able to tell her story, she could have been one of the many who did not survive.

“It was so incredibly I don’t have any other words but disgusting because there were rooms without windows. There were rooms with windows that couldn’t open.”

Sioui says fire exits were not easily accessible to everyone in the building, on one floor, individuals had to go through another unit to access it, without a window in individual units Sioui says she fears they would have been trapped as thick black smoke was filling the unit and the building.

All seven of the victims of the fire have now officially been identified, AirBnb has since announced it would remove all listings in Quebec from its platform that don’t have a permit from the province.

Sioui says she is now triggered when she smells smoke or sees fire, adding that something like this should have never happened.

“Many people are responsible for this, and I know that they keep throwing the ball at each other, but at some point, there’s going to have to be some sort of change, solution, compensation and also justice, because there are so many families that have been broken because of this.