Sabrina Dufaan and her family has nowhere to go after their Montreal apartment burned down, along with what little savings they had stashed away in the kitchen.
The mother of two says her husband had lit scented candles while they were cleaning, before they left to pick up their young daughter and grab some groceries on Dec. 3.
“Within 10 minutes we got a phone call from the lady downstairs. She was like ‘Your house is on fire. Come now,’” Dufaan said in an interview Friday.
Dufaan froze before running back to the family’s apartment in the city’s St-Leonard borough. The whole home was on fire, with flames already erupting from the roof.
“It was horrible. I couldn’t breathe,” she said. “I was shocked. I was still shocked.”
In an email Friday, a spokesperson for the Montreal fire department confirmed that the fire was accidental in nature and “the probable cause was an unattended lit candle.”
The blaze not only forced Dufaan and her family out of their apartment, but their neighbours’ homes were also damaged by heavy water as firefighters worked to douse the flames.
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Dufaan’s landlord recently informed them it will take about a year to rebuild, which means they can’t go back home. Everything inside was burned, from clothes and furniture to her 14-year-old son’s gaming computer. Her five-year-old daughter is too young to understand why they had to move or where her stuffed animals have gone.
“My kids are devastated,” she said.
Dufaan worked up the courage to finally see their fire-ravaged home 10 days later. The walls are blackened by soot and part of the ceiling disappeared.
“It doesn’t look like an apartment any more. It looks like a dungeon,” Dufaan said of the extensive damage.
The family has been rotating between sleeping at shelters and a friend’s house. They must find a new apartment, but it must be furnished and so far the hunt has been unsuccessful because they can’t afford the rent.
Aside from losing all of their belongings, Dufaan says the little money in savings they had was in their kitchen.
“We have nothing left,” she said.
Before the fire, times were tough. Her husband’s family wooden palette business went out of business during the COVID-19 pandemic and he now struggles with health issues.
Dufaan is also recovering from brain trauma after she slipped on water in the bathroom and fell — just three days into her new job as a 911 operator.
Her childhood friend was kind and offered them gift cards, but as they navigate this latest challenge Dufaan says she now has to ask others for help through an online fundraiser.
“It has just been one thing after the other,” she said. “It’s too much to bear.”
According to Montreal’s fire department, 73 per cent of fires in the city in 2023 happened inside homes. Of all fires reported during that time period, 56 per cent were the result of human error while one out of four are caused by an open flame.
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