A tragic fire which killed a five-year-old and a three-year-old may have been started by the older of the two siblings, who was known to have ’caused other fires’ using a lighter, an investigation concluded.
Louis Constantin Busuioc, five, and his three-year-old sister Desire-Elena Busuioc died in a fire at their home in Preston.
Emergency services rushed to a house in Coronation Crescent just before 8pm on April 8, 2022.
The mother of the next-door neighbour, who called 999, had reported seeing the fire in the front room.
Louis and Desire were rescued from the property by firefighters but both died four days later.
Their mother, Lorena, had managed to escape from an upstairs window.
An inquest which started today (Monday, December 2) at County Hall in Preston heard from fire investigator Paul Ratcliffe who said he had been able to discount several possible causes of the blaze, such as an electrical fault or a gas leak.
While both Lorena and her husband Lucian – who was at work at the time of the incident – were smokers there was no evidence of discarded cigarettes near to the two-seater sofa where the fire started.
Mr Ratcliffe added: ‘They both smoked hand-rolled cigarettes. They are considered highly unlikely to cause a fire because even if they are discarded they have a tendency to just go out so we were able to discount cigarettes as a cause.’
Having examined the scene and conducted excavations of the front room the fire investigation concluded that the fire was started by a long-reach lighter, such as those used to light a stove, igniting the settee.
The couples two children Louis and Desire tragically died in the house fire in 2022
A family photo of Lorena and her husband Lucian with their children Louis and Desire
‘What we did find was the remains of a long reach lighter,’ Mr Ratcliffe said. ‘The remains of that, the metal tube, was found between the door and the sofa.
‘Lorena said there had been two lighters in the property. There was one long-reach one, a yellow one, in the kitchen, kept on the fridge freezer. Neither Lorena or Lucian could remember the last time they used that but in a thorough search of the kitchen we couldn’t find it.’
Area Coroner Chris Long then said to Mr Ratcliffe: ‘Lighters don’t usually combust by themselves’. The investigator responded: ‘No they don’t sir.’
‘Both parents did recount that their son had, in the months leading up to the fire, caused other fires and had been discovered with a lighter,’ Mr Ratcliffe added.
‘There was one area in the bedroom where the carpet had been singed a couple of months prior to the fire… her son had set fire to some clothes and he had been seen attempting to use a cigarette lighter.’
The inquest also heard that Lorena had been asleep when the fire started. She had locked herself and the two children in an upstairs bedroom to prevent them from leaving the room while she slept.
The fire investigation found that a metal coat hanger had been used to unlock the bedroom door prior to the fire starting.
‘Lorena and Lucian had no knowledge of this coat hanger so the only reasonable explanation was that its presence was down to one of the children,’ Mr Ratcliffe added.
Pictured: Police officers on scene in April 2022 after the house fire in Preston
A hearing today was told that Louis is believed to have accidentally started the fire using a kitchen lighter which set a sofa alight
Before Lorena and Lucian moved into the rented property in Coronation Crescent the landlord had fitted a fire escape window to the main bedroom. However, when fire investigators visited the house, they found the handle had been removed.
Mr Ratcliffe said: ‘I found it in a drawer of the dresser. If that window had been available it would have aided escape.
‘The explanation for the handle being taken off was, the young girl had been caught on a number of occasions, climbing up and opening the window and the parents had been fearful of her falling, understandably, so it had been removed.’
At an earlier hearing, Lorena said firefighters hadn’t entered the property immediately.
However while Preston Coroner’s Court was told that fire crews bravely extracted both children from the flames within eight minutes, North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) initially categorised it as a grade 2 emergency.
It was then upgraded and the first paramedic arrived at the scene 22 minutes after the initial 999 call, the hearing was told, with the first ambulance arriving a further six minutes later.
Mr Long directed the trust to provide statements about the ambulance response.
Among the floral tributes left in 2022 was a school polo shirt with the message: ‘To Louis, I will miss you’
He asked for a statement from a doctor on whether the prognosis for each child would have been different if it had been quicker.
On the day of the fire Lorena screamed out of the window for neighbours to help, after spotting ‘thick, black smoke rising from below’,
But in a statement to the hearing she struggled to coax the terrified pair through the window.
Onlookers told her to ‘jump now’ and she dropped on to a wooden board that been placed on a wheelie bin.
She had then made attempts to get back inside but was stopped by neighbours, a previous hearing heard.
One kicked down the front door while another ladders in a bid to save them, but the heat and smoke were too intense.
Lorena later told police the emergency response had been inadequate, saying: ‘I don’t think whoever was supposed to save them was competent.’
In a statement she said: ‘I think more than ten minutes passed before the fire service arrived.’
She said that she had told firefighters her children were still inside, but they had not entered the property immediately.
Neither Mr or Mrs Busuioc attended the first day of the inquest. Their landlord was present and had the opportunity to ask questions. The inquest continues.