'I could see her arms waving': Man recounts 'horrific' moment of fatal Old Montreal fire

Sean Mollitt says it's hard to get the images of a major building fire that claimed the lives of at least two people Friday out of his head.

Sleeping in his bedroom across from the three-storey, 100-year-old building on Notre-Dame Street in Old Montreal, Mollitt says he was awoken by what he thought was kids breaking windows. 

Then he caught something far worse. 

"All of a sudden, I hear a woman scream repeatedly, and it sounded absolutely horrible," he said. 

Mollitt went up to his roof to see a woman standing on the fire escape of the building directly across from him. 

"I could see her arms waving and [hear] her screaming and it was pretty horrific," he said. "And then the whole building sort of got engulfed with black smoke and I couldn't see anything anymore."

Moments later, large flames would overwhelm the building, which housed a restaurant on the main floor and a hostel above, and trigger a five-alarm fire response. 

"About an hour later, I was literally sitting on my roof and I watched half the building collapse," Mollitt said. 

Radio-Canada sources say the two victims killed in the fire were a mother and her seven-year-old daughter, who were French nationals. Police are still working to determine how many people were in the building at the time of the fire. 

Mollitt says he's working to recover from the shock of it all. 

"I've got these images in my head that I'm trying to work through."

The fire broke out on the main floor of the building around 2 a.m. Friday and the flames quickly spread to the second and third floors.

Police did not confirm its cause but said it was suspicious. The force's major crimes unit is working closely with the arson squad on the case.

Security camera footage obtained by Radio-Canada shows a person breaking into the building minutes before the fire broke out. Montreal police said they would not comment on the footage.