Officials say two people have died, including an elderly mother and her adult child, and two others were critically injured after a house fire in Mississauga early Tuesday.
The fire broke out at a home on Bromsgrove Road, near Winston Churchill Boulevard and Royal Windsor Drive, at around 3 a.m.
Global News has identified through neighbours that the elderly woman killed in the fire was Alice Kret.
The other person who died in the fire has not been identified.
Kret lived in the home with her three adult children.
Peel police initially said one person had died as a result of the fire.
Three others were also taken to hospital — an elderly woman with critical injuries and had no vital signs, a woman with serious life-threatening injuries and a man with minor injuries, paramedics said.
Police later confirmed a second person had also succumbed to their injuries and had passed away in hospital.
Mississauga Fire Chief Rizzi told Global News two people were able to self-evacuate before firefighters arrived with one of them suffering significant burn injuries.
When firefighters did arrive, Rizzi said they went into the home and found two people in separate rooms.
A cat and a dog were also rescued from the home, she said. The cat survived but the dog perished in the fire.
“There were some really senior firefighters that have seen a number of different fires, they really described it as high, high heat conditions, heavy smoke, flame involvement,” Rizzi said. “This was a fire that was really going. And that’s why we can see the significant injuries on the patients.”
“This is a tough day for our firefighters when we lose members of our community in a fatal house fire,” Rizzi said.
Rizzi also said the fire was being deemed suspicious as there were “multiple points of origin.”
However, in an afternoon update from Jim Gillespie, an investigator with Ontario’s Office of the Fire Marshal, the fire was no longer being deemed as suspicious.
“It’s easy to understand their confusion, because of the fire spread, but I believe there is only one area of origin for the fire,” Gillespie said.
“We’re still doing the investigation, but right now there is nothing to indicate that it’s a suspicious fire.”
He added that the origin of the fire was on the first floor of the townhome in the living room.
Gillespie has since confirmed that there were no working fire alarms in the home.
Neighbours react to fatal house fire
One neighbour who has lived in the area for 37 years tells Global News “She was a sweet lady.”
She said she knew the family that included a mother and her three adult children.
Another neighbour, Fatima Shere, said was told by firefighters that she and everyone in her home, including her elderly grandmother and a 13-month-old child, had to leave because of the house fire next door.
“Last night, it was just crazy. It was unbelievable,” Shere said.
“I have a small little girl, who I had to pick her up, and we had to wait outside in the cold,” Shere said. She also confirmed an older woman and her three adult children lived in the home that caught fire.
Shere said her home was not damaged from the fire.