Homicide detectives are investigating after a five-month-old baby boy died following an arson at a southwest Edmonton home early Tuesday morning. Police said the boy’s death is Edmonton’s 32nd homicide of the year.
A call was made to 911 shortly before 4 a.m. regarding a fire in the Ambleside neighbourhood on Armitage Crescent S.W.
When firefighters arrived on scene, they entered the home and rescued a mother and child from the second floor while the house was engulfed in flames. The pair was taken to hospital by ambulance in serious condition.
The baby died in hospital. Police said the 29-year-old mother remained in hospital in life-threatening condition late Tuesday afternoon.
Eight people lived in the home. Edmonton Fire Rescue Services operations deputy chief Scott Macdonald said the six other people were able to make it out of the house on their own before fire crews arrived.
Police said the people who live in the home were not all related. They include:
- a 58-year-old man
- a 40-year-old man
- a 24-year-old man
- a 35-year-old woman
- a 29-year-old woman in life-threatening condition
- a seven-year-old child
- a five-year-old-child
- a five-month-old baby boy
A property search shows the home is owned by Angie Tang. Two men who rent rooms in the home said Tang is the mother of the baby, whose name is Hunter. The baby’s father’s name is Cordell Brown, the men told Global News.
They said Brown also lived in the home.
Stephen Burns lives on the main floor of the home and said he believes the fire started outside the house.
Kyle Whitford lives in the basement of the house and said he woke up to the sound of fire alarms but didn’t think much of it.
“I figured it was someone burning toast upstairs,” he said. “I didn’t think it was a fire.”
He went upstairs but said the entire front entrance was “lit up” with flames.
“When I saw fire, I started panicking,” he said.
Whitford ran back downstairs, where a woman and her two children also live.
Nedra Lukas is close friends with the woman who lives in the basement of the house. Lukas said her friend and her two kids — a five-year-old girl and seven-year-old boy — were taken to hospital after a frightening escape from the home.
“It’s pretty intense,” Lukas said. “Basically, she woke up to the fire alarm and she heard banging so her first thought was that they were getting broken into.
“Because they were in the basement, she ended up going upstairs and as soon as she opened the door, she just got hit with flames.”
Unable to get through the flames, Lukas said her friend grabbed her kids and exited the basement through Whitford’s window, along with Whitford.
“She said she couldn’t believe how fast it happened,” Lukas said.
“She had to toss her kids out one at a time.”
Lukas’ friend and her kids were later released from hospital. She said the seven-year-old boy suffered burns to his back.
“Her world is spinning right now,” Lukas said of her friend. “She seems pretty out of it. It was traumatizing, so she’s in shock.”
Neighbours described the scene as chaotic. Sid Fontoura said he woke up to an orange glow out of his top floor window. He said he saw a flame shooting out of the side of his neighbour’s home that was well above the roof.
“I ran downstairs, got the phone to call 911 and they told me I was the second caller, someone had called before,” Fontoura said.
“I went out to see if anyone was coming out of the house. The homeowner came out of the house. He went to the next-door neighbours to bang on the door to try and get their attention but by that point, the whole house was already in flames.”
Another neighbour said he woke up to the sound of the fire which he said sounded like a storm.
“We were sleeping and we just heard someone yelling out the window, ‘Andy, Andy!’ We weren’t sure what was going on, so we came outside and all you could see is basically a burst of flames,” neighbour Raja Narayan said.
“You could smell it, you could hear it. It was just crackling. It was a lot of flames.”
Watch below: A neighbour explains what he saw during a devastating house fire in southwest Edmonton.
Investigators are looking into the cause of the fire.
“The structure is compromised, so we may have to remediate that, but we can’t do anything to the building until we finish the investigation,” Macdonald said.
“We have an investigations K9 unit, they want to take the dog inside and have a look around.”
Police said an autopsy is scheduled for Wednesday morning. Officers do not have any suspects in custody.
On Tuesday evening, a small memorial emerged for the victims of the fire as bouquets of flowers were placed at the scene of the blaze.