HAMILTON -- Flames poured from the windows of a Hamilton home early Saturday morning in a blaze that claimed the lives of a mother and two young children and sent seven others to hospital.
Hamilton Fire Department spokesman Claudio Mostacci said firefighters were called to a house fire in Hamilton's north end at 4:30 a.m.
They arrived to find smoke and flame coming from the second floor of the two and a half-storey house. The fire reached a neighbouring house before they could bring it under control.
Mostacci said 11 people were in the first house at the time of the fire. Eight of them had made their way out of the house by the time fire crews arrived, Mostacci said in a news conference.
Seven people were sent to hospital and one escaped uninjured.
Three bodies, which firefighters initially couldn't locate, were found in the home on Saturday afternoon, fire officials said.
Police did not immediately release the identities of those who died, but several local media reports and social media posts identified them as Victoria Maire, her son Robert and daughter Abigail. The ages of the children weren't immediately known.
Firefighters were forced to abandon their search-and-rescue efforts in the first house, due to concerns that the structure might collapse, said Mostacci.
No one was inside the second house at the time of the fire.
Ontario's fire marshal, police and the coroner were all involved in the investigation.
