An elderly man has died after being pulled from a two-alarm house fire in Scarborough Christmas morning.
Emergency crews were called to a home on Allanford Road, in the area of Birchmount Road and Hwy. 401, at around 2:40 a.m.
Firefighters arrived to find an active fire. They pulled two people from the home and transferred them to the care of paramedics, Toronto Fire said.
Toronto Paramedic Services told CP24 that they transported an 80-year-old man to hospital in critical condition, a 79-year-old woman who was in serious condition, and a man in his early 30s who sustained minor injuries.
The elderly man was pronounced dead in hospital, Toronto police said.
Paramedics also treated a firefighter at the scene for smoke inhalation, but he didn’t need to go to hospital.
A man at the scene who identified himself as Owen told CP24 he was a tenant in the basement and that a total of seven people lived at the home, including four members of a family who lived upstairs.
The man who died, he said, was visiting the family for the holidays.
“Everything in the basement is a mess. All over the place, burned” he said, clearly distraught. “Oh my god, I have nowhere to live.”
He said smoke was already filling the home when smoke detectors sounded downstairs and upstairs, waking him up in the middle of the night.
He said he ran out along with the other downstairs tenants and tried to alert the residents upstairs.
Kevin, a neighbour who said he was hanging out just last night with the younger man who was injured, said he was shocked to learn about the fire.
“It was a shock. I don’t really know how to feel hearing about something like this,” he said. “My first thought was just ‘is everyone okay?’ He was just at my place and you think ‘what changed within those few hours. There’s no words to really explain the situation.”
Images from the scene showed the charred front and side of the home, with extensive damage inside and out.
It’s not yet clear how the fire started. Firefighters remain at the scene.
With files from Beatrice Vaisman
