No smoke alarms in Oshawa, Ont., home where blaze killed 4: fire investigator
There were no working smoke alarms in a southern Ontario home where four people were killed in a fire this week, an investigator said Wednesday, calling the deaths a “preventable tragedy.”
A mother and her two young children, and an unrelated man who ran into the burning home to help those inside, were killed in the blaze in Oshawa, Ont., on Monday.
“This is a preventable tragedy and it shouldn’t happen — not in today’s day and age with the technology we have, with the safety systems we have in place and the fire services that we have,” Rick Derstroff, an investigator with Ontario’s Office of the Fire Marshal, told reporters outside the home on Wednesday.
Smoke alarms would have given the home’s occupants early warning of the fire and a chance to escape, Derstroff said.