Woman and 3 children found unconscious after apartment fire in Moncton

Three children and a woman were taken to hospital after being found unconscious after a fire at a three-unit apartment building in Moncton, N.B., Monday morning.

Charles LeBlanc, deputy chief of fire prevention for the Moncton Fire Department, said firefighters responded to the blaze on Bonaccord Street shortly after 7 a.m.

“The fire was quickly brought under control by our crews,” LeBlanc said.

The fire was at the back of the building in a ground-level apartment.

Moncton Fire Department platoon chief Brian McDonald said “three young children and an adult female” were rescued from the apartment and taken to hospital.

“When we rescued them from the house, they were all unconscious,” he said. McDonald did not have an update on their condition.

RCMP and the Moncton Fire Department are investigating the cause of the fire.

Evan Donovan, the personal disaster response supervisor with the Canadian Red Cross, said the organization is providing help for tenants displaced by the fire.

“We’re providing hotel lodging, money for food, money for clothing,” he said.

‘I smelled smoke’

Tanika Boudreau, one of the building’s tenants, called 911 Monday morning.

“I woke up because I smelled smoke,” she said, adding that she grew up around wood stoves and the smell “wasn’t normal.”

She said she ran to her back neighbour’s door and began banging on it. Boudreau said she “heard commotion,” and when the door opened, smoke billowed out.

“It was just coming out as black smoke,” she said.

Boudreau said she spoke briefly with a man inside the unit and called the fire department. Firefighters were there within minutes.

Watching her neighbours being taken away in an ambulance was difficult, she said.

“I haven’t processed it, I don’t think,” she said. “I hope they’re OK.”

— with files from Suzanne Lapointe