‘Traumatized’: Photographer who captured deadly Old Montreal fire uncertain if woman in distress survived
Posted October 5, 2024 12:25 pm.
Last Updated October 5, 2024 7:20 pm.
Sean Mollitt was awoken by the sound of bursting glass early Friday morning and witnessed the Old Montreal building fire on Notre Dame Street East. He saw a woman on the fire escape screaming at the top of her lungs.
“I was listening, sort of half asleep, then the sounds got really, really louder and then it sounded more like exploding breaking glass and then all of a sudden a woman started screaming, like obviously in horrendous fear,” said Mollitt. “That woke me up.” He’s not sure if the woman survived.
Two people have been confirmed to have died in the fire as of Saturday morning, with more victims possible as firefighters and police investigators continue to work through the scene. They were only able to get in Friday night, after firefighters battled the scene for 16 hours.
Mollitt lives in a building that overlooks the one that was ablaze.
“I get up to my roof and I’m looking straight into the building and there’s this woman on the fire escape and I can see her arms waving and she’s screaming and then this huge puff of black smoke sort of covers everything and I see flames looking up from the bottom and I’m just completely blown away and I was like, I wasn’t really dressed so I went inside to put a coat on and grab my phone and when I got back out, she was like gone. I mean, the flames had just in that short period of time, the flames had just grown and then the whole thing just got consumed.”
Mollitt, a photographer, got some gear and started taking pictures.
“I was just sort of mesmerized by the whole scene all night and I just kept taking shots.”
Eventually he says a whole wall of the building fell apart right in front of him. “I just took pictures all night and I couldn’t sleep. I was a little traumatized by the whole thing.”
He credits firefighters and police for their actions amid the fire. “They obviously saved a lot of people. … I think it’s just the speed of the flames, the speed of the fire, it just, there wasn’t enough time for people to get out.”
“I mean, what a job. I mean, they’re there, they’ve been there for like two days now, totally dedicated, and there must have been hundreds on the site. They’re all working, they had three, four cranes going at once, and I was taking a lot of pictures of them, how they were coordinating their efforts, and it was an amazing effort from the fire department.”
For Mollitt though, the scene has been difficult to get out of his mind. “I’m talking with friends and stuff,” he adds of what he witnessed. “Normally (I don’t) get that affected, but I’ve had these images in my mind that are sort of, I can’t get rid of.”
