The victim in a deadly fire at a North York apartment building earlier this month has been identified as a 57-year-old man.
Nam Tu Huy Vu was pronounced dead after being pulled from an eighth-floor balcony at a building on Gosford Boulevard near Jane Street and Shoreham Drive on Nov. 15.
His identity wasn’t immediately released but on Wednesday his family confirmed to CTV News Toronto that he was the victim who perished in the five-alarm fire, which also injured six others.
A family friend, who was staying with Vu at the time of the fire, also spoke with CTV News Toronto about what transpired in the moments after the blaze broke out.
The individual, who did not want to be identified, said that he and Vu were greeted by thick smoke at the door to their apartment. He said that he believes Vu ran inside to retrieve some property.
“He was with me and then he ran inside. I ran outside. That is pretty much it, he said. “He ran back inside to grab something and that was the last time I saw him. I don’t know what exactly he was doing inside because the smoke was took thick. By the time I ran to the door and looked back I couldn’t see anything.”
The family friend said that Vu mostly kept to himself in the time they lived together but did “seem like a nice person.”
Residents may not return for months
The identification comes one day after Mayor John Tory met with some of the roughly 700 residents who were displaced as a result of the fire.
Speaking with CP24 earlier in the day, Tory said that he gave the residents an “honest update” on the stark realities surrounding their return home following the fire.
“I gave them a very honest update last night and it wasn’t one that they necessarily wanted to hear but I told them the truth which is that the work to get the building back to a safe condition is going to take months. Maybe not the entire building but large portions of it will be out of action for months,” he said. “They (residents) are frustrated as anybody would be but I think they felt supported.”
The fire began inside an eighth-floor unit but spread throughout several other floors before eventually being contained.
The damage caused by the fire was extensive and Tory told CP24 on Wednesday that there are some structural concerns that will need to be addressed before many residents can return home.
“A couple floors in the building were badly damaged by the fire itself but what people don’t know is that the fire actually spread up one side of the building from the seventh and eighth floor where it started up to the 16th floor so there are structural concerns with the building and we have to have people go in and make sure that the building wasn’t damaged in such a way that it is dangerous,” he said.
Many of the displaced residents of 235 Gosford Boulevard have been staying on the campus of York University but Tory said that temporary accommodations there are slated to close this weekend.
He said that it will ultimately be the responsibility of the landlord to ensure that displaced residents have an appropriate place to say.
“We are going to make sure the landlord supports them because that is their responsibility and we are going to be meeting with the landlord later today to make that very clear,” he said.
