Life will “never be the same” for a Brampton man who lost five family members, including his newborn son, in a devastating house fire.
Flames ripped through the rental property where 11 people were living on Banas Way in the McLaughlin and Remembrance roads area in the early morning hours of November 20.
Jugraj Singh was not home at the time of the blaze as he was working as a truck driver in North Carolina that night.
His pregnant wife survived when she jumped out of a window but suffered severe injuries. An emergency c-section was performed, but his newborn son later died.
His five-year-old son was also injured in the blaze along with two brothers-in-law.
Singh tells OMNI News both his son and wife are still recovering in hospital, and he spends his days between Sunnybrook Hospital and the Hospital for Sick Children.
His son is expected to have an extensive recovery. “My son is going through multiple surgeries; he’s in the best hospital … they are doing some grafting or skin surgeries.”
And the recovery is not just physical for his wife, who he called “very brave.”
“She saved my son and herself,” Singh told OMNI News. He explained they were sleeping at the time of the fire and woke up to the smell of smoke. “They [broke] their window and jumped out onto the car … everything happened in seconds, minutes.”
The other four victims were his mother-in-law, his sister-in-law, and her two-year-old child and his wife’s cousin. They have been identified by family as Harinder Kaur, Gurjit Kaur Grewal, Bantvir Singh Deol, and Anudeep Kaur.
Singh described the family as very close knit, living very happily. “We are very close to each other because all of the family living together, doing jobs for each other.”
He also took the opportunity to thank his friends and the community who has rallied around him. A GoFundMe has raised nearly $120,000 to help his family rebuild.
“I don’t think it will ever be the same, but we will try to start again,” Singh shared.
Investigation into cause of deadly fire still ongoing
An investigation into the cause of the deadly blaze is expected to be lengthy, but Peel police have said so far, there is “nothing to indicate criminality.”
The Ontario Fire Marshal’s Office continues to investigate the cause of the fire. They have said fire alarms were found inside the home, but it’s not yet clear if they were functional.
No further updates have been given.
The house has since been completely demolished by crews.
Shortly after the fire, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown called the home’s owner an “absentee landlord” who didn’t follow up with city-mandated inspections and wasn’t licensed to have that many people living under one roof.
“In recent years, the homeowner who is an absentee landlord (and) is out of the country for an extended period, submitted a building permit application to create a second dwelling unit in the basement,” he explained on Thursday.
Brown said the City ordered work to be completed, but alleges the owner failed to follow up on the required inspections.
