Resident dies after Saturday house fire

MINTO – A 75-year-old woman is dead following a house fire on the Minto‑Normanby Townline on Saturday.

The Advertiser is not naming the woman at the family’s request.

Linda Roussy was bathing on the lower level of her bungalow on the afternoon of Feb. 28 when she heard her daughter-in-law screaming for a fire extinguisher.

Roussy said she ran from her apartment in the large farmhouse to the main level above, where an elderly tenant of five years lived.

“The whole apartment she had, from front to back, was engulfed,” Roussy told the Advertiser by phone on Monday.

Roussy said her daughter-in-law, Marion, who lived with Roussy’s son across a hallway from the woman, used at least four fire extinguishers to try and knock down the flames.

“It would knock it down; it would flare back up,” she said.

Fire blanket in hand, Roussy said she tried to run in far enough to rescue the woman.

“I managed to get about five feet into the apartment before the smoke knocked me on the floor.”

The 77-year-old said she crawled back out of the unit before running through the snow in bare feet and pyjamas to try and enter from outside, but was met by locked sliding glass doors.

“She suffered, because I could hear her crying for us to come and get her; and we tried, we really, really tried, but we couldn’t get to her,” Roussy said tearfully.

“It was just a nightmare.”

Emergency crews began responding to the fire at around 2:30pm, according to a press release from the Wellington County OPP.

Police arrived first, according to Roussy, who said an officer, along with another of Roussy's sons living on the property, broke through the sliding doors to get the woman out. 

The woman was later pronounced dead at hospital.

The Ontario Fire Marshal’s office, chief coroner and forensics officials are investigating the fire and the death.

Minto deputy fire chief Callise Loos said in an email the fire investigation was ongoing as of Monday afternoon.

Loos earlier told the Advertiser the investigation was to wrap up Monday, but said ice and frozen materials at the scene were preventing a full examination.

“We understand the public interest in this incident, and we are committed to providing updates as soon as we are able,” Loos said.

The Office of the Fire Marshal did not respond to a request for comment.

Roussy said until a long-term solution is found, she and her displaced family members are now living in a house trailer on the 100-acre property where the farmhouse burned.

The home was built 26 years ago as a multi-generational dwelling with several separated apartments, according to Roussy.

“We don’t know how much the structure’s integrity has been destroyed,” she said.

The months ahead will be “awkward and difficult,” Roussy added. “But we’ll get through it.”

The real “horror,” Roussy said, was for the woman who died, and now for her family members left to mourn.