Lessons from the Day the House Burned Down (The Fiddlehead, No. 304 - Summer 2025)
I was thrilled that my essay “Lessons from the Day the House Burned Down” was published in the Creative Nonfiction Summer 2025 issue of The Fiddlehead - one of Canada’s seminal literary mags!
Although I know it’s much easier to access things online, there’s still something really special and beautiful about seeing my work in a printed publication.
Or read it below (with less fancy formatting)!
Lessons from the Day the House Burned Down
Judith Lam Tang
content note: house fire, infant death
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
9:00 am
Angie’s house caught fire.
No one can reach Angie.
9:08 am
Mom is hysterical.
I’m going to their house.
9:23 am
Come home. Angie is at Mis hospital.
9:41 am
Please call.
Hunter is in heaven.
I loudly gasped when I checked my phone at 10:00 am. I was in an intake meeting with a family to start services for their autistic child. I was about to open my calendar to schedule a home visit when I saw the text messages from my husband, Ron.
“Um, excuse me, I just need to, uh, make a phone call,” I stammered and scrambled out of the room. I darted outside the building and quickly dialled Ron’s phone. My brother-in-law, Matthew, answered.
“What — what’s happening?” I asked in panic.
“Ron is driving us to the Misericordia hospital right now,” he answered. “Angie is in the ICU. The house was on fire, and they took Hunter. They said he died.” He broke off in sobs. Hunter was Angie’s 5-month-old son. She had just sent photos of him yesterday with a “5 months old” sign to celebrate the milestone.
“He died?? What?” I shrieked and started sobbing.
“Come to the hospital,” he told me. “You can meet us there.”
“Ok, I’ll leave work now,” I answered and hung up. My thoughts were scattered and shaken like the inside of a snow globe. I felt like I was floating into another plane of existence. I saw myself push open the door to the building and collapse in the front lobby. I started to loudly wail. Coworkers rushed to see what was happening.
“My sister-in-law,” I blubbered, “her house was on fire, her baby died.” I could barely get any coherent words out. A co-worker was able to ascertain that I needed to get to the hospital and said she would drive me. She didn’t think I was safe to drive myself.
At the hospital, I found Ron, Matthew, and their parents in the ICU waiting room. My mother-in-law was crying, and my father-in-law looked stunned.
A hospital chaplain came in and introduced himself. I have no recollection of what his name was, or even what he looked like. He told us we couldn’t see Angie yet, but he would let us know when we could. He couldn’t tell us anything about her condition.
“What happened?” I finally asked Ron. He took his phone out and we started to look at the coverage from the morning news. We watched a video of Angie’s house, taken in the early hours, engulfed in flames. It didn’t look real. It felt like we were watching a movie with special effects. The entire house was on fire, and it lit the night sky like a beacon.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. “How did this even happen?”
We scrolled through different news outlets to see what they said. “Adult, infant facing life-threatening injuries after fire guts southwest Edmonton home.”
“Child dies after devastating south Edmonton house fire.”
“Where did they take Hunter? Did they actually confirm that he’s dead? Maybe he’s not dead!” This one says, “infant facing life-threatening injuries!” I peppered Ron with follow up questions.
“I don’t know,” he replied slowly. “There was someone at my parents’ house who told us he was taken to the Stollery but that he died. I don’t think they would tell us that if he was still alive.”
“We should ask someone to confirm,” I said firmly. But there was no one to ask. Our family sat restless in the waiting room, with nothing to do but sit in our shock, our disbelief, our grief, our confusion. We had no idea of Angie’s condition. The news outlets reported she had life-threatening injuries. But no one had actually told us anything except that we couldn’t see her yet.
Lesson 1: Procedures take precedence with authorities.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
2:14pm
After several hours of crying, silence, and despair, we were finally told we could see Angie. A police officer told us they hadn’t given us permission to see her earlier because it was unclear whether she would make it. If she died, it would mean an investigation into her death was necessary, and us seeing her would have compromised the investigation. Only now that the doctors said she was in critical but stable condition were we permitted to see her. Of course, they couldn’t have explained that to us hours ago. We were left in a state of utter confusion, imagining the worst.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
3:04 pm
I was back in the ICU waiting room after leaving Angie’s hospital bed. Knowing she was alive and stable allowed my mind to return briefly to managing my regular world. I needed to pick up my daughter from summer camp. I needed to retrieve my car from my office parking lot. I needed to let my supervisors know I wouldn’t be at work the next day. I started receiving text messages from friends that a new headline popped up in the news.
“Baby boy’s death a homicide, house fire deliberately set: Edmonton police.”
I showed it to Ron. “Homicide? Someone set the house on fire?”
The shock we experienced for the last few hours escalated even further. How could this horrible nightmare be even worse than we originally thought? Deliberately set? Our devastation at losing Hunter and our fear of losing Angie was compounded by the horrifying news that someone had actually done this on purpose. It would have been one thing to deal with the death of our nephew and the critical state of our sister from an accident. An electrical fire from a frayed cord on an appliance, or a candle that wasn’t blown out. But it was the result of a crime? My mind was in overdrive trying to make sense of how this could have happened. Not only that, but we were also finding out this information through the news along with the general public. No one from the police provided us with this information, as the victims’ family, yet they were notifying the media. We started seeing Angie’s and Hunter’s names in the media coverage, without anyone advising us this would happen. It seemed exceptionally cruel that even though we were Angie and Hunter’s family, we knew as much or even less than the news reporters about what happened.
Lesson 2: Smoke is deadlier than fire.
Tuesday, August 22, 2017
2:35 pm
The strong smell of smoke assaulted my senses as I walked into the dimly lit hospital room. It smelled like there was something burning. It took me a moment to figure out that Angie was the source of the smell. The smell of smoke was coming from her body. She was intubated and unconscious, attached to countless tubes and machines. The medical staff told us she was sedated because they were concerned she would try to remove her breathing tube once she was conscious, and it would be very difficult to re-intubate with her injuries. There was so much damage to her lungs and her airway because of the smoke inhalation. She would need to go through several rounds of hyperbaric oxygen treatment. They would also need to do several treatments to remove the soot from her lungs.
“I can’t even imagine how much smoke ended up in Hunter’s tiny lungs,” I said to my husband after we left Angie’s hospital room. We would later find out from Angie that she had sequestered herself and Hunter in the master bedroom closet after discovering the hallway leading away from the bedroom was engulfed in flames. She called 911 and they told her to stuff clothing into the gap beneath the door to try to keep the smoke out. That was where the rescuers retrieved her and Hunter, both unconscious but untouched by the fire. Enough smoke had gotten in to kill Hunter, and to almost kill Angie.
Statistics Canada reported that from 2011 to 2020, “the majority (68%) of residential fire-related deaths were a result of smoke inhalation alone, while 10% were reported to be caused by both smoke inhalation and burns, and 17% were due to burns alone.
Lesson 3: Smoke permeates everything, and soot collects everywhere.
The weeks following the fire were surreal. I woke up every day and drove my daughter to summer camp, planned and hosted her seventh birthday party, and went to stores to buy supplies for Angie and for Hunter’s funeral. I saw myself going through these motions but felt like someone else was actually doing them.
Angie was released from the hospital nine days after the fire. She started sorting through the wreckage to separate out clothing that was charred and burned. She tried to wash clothing that were intact but they still smelled of smoke. The smell of smoke was an intense trigger for her, so I helped with washing and re-washing some of her clothes multiple times with different remedies to try to get rid of the smoke smell. Angie couldn’t be expected to wear clothing that smelled like smoke; it would be like wearing a costume of trauma.
There was also the issue of soot. When a fire burns, carbon particles collect on surfaces as soot. In the hospital, Angie went through several treatments to remove soot that had settled in her lungs. A tiny suction mechanism was fed through her intubation and medical imaging was used to guide the suction to remove the soot. I imagined a tiny vacuum cleaner inside her lungs, sucking up the black bits. I thought of how I used to talk about my new Dyson vacuum and joke, “it really sucks.” I hoped the hospital suction was more sophisticated than my Dyson.
Even though they were safely in a dresser that hadn’t been burned, many of Hunter’s clothes were unsalvageable due to the amount of soot that had settled into them. I felt guilty that I had shown Angie a different way to put them in his dresser so each item could be seen in a row, rather than putting them in a pile. This method of storing his clothes meant every single item had a line of soot where it was exposed. Soot does not come out easily by laundering. The tiny black particles settle into the weave of the fabric and take up permanent residence. My Dyson and washing machine were no match for them.
Lesson 4: Victims don’t matter.
A house burning down is a traumatic event, and not just for the homeowner. My mother-in-law was on the scene several hours after the fire burned out; she ran over to the house a few blocks away when she saw the images on the early morning news. Emergency personnel and police were still milling about. She saw her daughter’s house burned to the ground and had no idea where her daughter and grandson were. The police at the scene put her in the back of a police car and left her there without making any effort to provide her with support. She doesn’t speak much English, but she tried to tell them it was her daughter’s house. They dismissed her and told her to stay put in the police car. No one offered any information. No one attempted to find an interpreter to ensure she understood what was happening. She eventually got out of the police car and walked home to call her husband.
Weeks later, when victim services became involved, we were told my mother-in-law didn’t qualify for any support because she was not the one who ended up dead or in the hospital. Any therapy she would try to access in the weeks and months that followed were on her own dime. I still see how the trauma affects her to this day, years later.
After the fire, we were mystified about what would happen to the people responsible for it. At first, two people were arrested and the media reported charges of second-degree murder. Then it turned out that only one individual was being charged, and the charges were much less serious: arson and vandalism of property under $5000.
“It really depends on what the crown prosecutor thinks will result in a likely conviction,” a colleague with a husband in law enforcement told me. “They won’t go forward with charges if they’re not confident in a conviction because they want high conviction rates.” As someone who had never navigated the criminal justice system before, this was completely new information. I always thought that the crown prosecutor was there to ensure “justice was served” on behalf of the victims. The reality is the crown prosecutor is there on behalf of the state, and the system is a business, just like anything else in our capitalist society. So, it really doesn’t matter what is fair or just, and consideration of a victim’s experience is boiled down to a “victim impact statement” that has very little influence on the outcome. Our case was a single statistic and lesser charges with a conviction would mean a checkmark for the prosecution.
Lesson 5: “Justice System” is a misnomer.
December 7, 2018
8:47 am
Ron was quiet as we drove to the courthouse for the hearing. A young man who had previously been a tenant at Angie’s house was charged with arson and vandalism of property. He was pleading guilty. Although Hunter’s death was ruled a homicide, his death was not one of the charges.
We met Angie and Matthew at the courthouse. We went through the screening process at the entrance that was reminiscent of airport security, to ensure no one had any weapons or objects that could be used as weapons. In the courtroom, the defense stated that the young man admitted to destroying some of the outdoor plants at Angie’s house and set fire “to a tag on a piece of patio furniture.” The defense also stated that because the man was adopted as a baby from Russia into a good family and had a bright future ahead of him, he should receive a lenient sentence. Never mind that Hunter’s life had barely begun when he was killed. But of course, this man was not responsible for Hunter’s death - he was only responsible for setting fire to the sales tag on a piece of patio furniture. The judge decided she needed time to deliberate further before concluding sentencing.
We met with the crown prosecutor after the hearing. The crown prosecutor told us that although Hunter died because of the fire, there was no legal causation according to the evidence. It is our understanding that the police and fire departments continue to investigate the “intervening event” causing the rest of the house to be on fire, which caused Hunter’s death. Hunter’s death will probably be one of those cold cases you see on police shows, where a file is buried in boxes of archives and a detective picks it up thirty years after the fact to try to solve it.
“He set fire to the tag on the patio furniture, which caused the fire on the porch. Then SOMETHING HAPPENED, and the rest of the house was on fire,” the crown prosecutor said slowly. He kept repeating, “SOMETHING HAPPENED.”
“The something that happened isn’t that fire spreads from the front porch to the rest of the house? The porch is attached to the house. You’re saying it couldn’t spread from the porch to the house?” I said incredulously. “The fire on the porch should have gone out. It should not have spread to the rest of the house,” the crown prosecutor explained. “So, the fire was limited to the porch, and then SOMETHING HAPPENED, and the rest of the house was on fire.” We went back and forth like this for a long time. The fire investigators apparently recreated the scene of the crime and determined that the fire from the porch did not make the house catch on fire. I will not pretend to understand how fire spreads, but that seems extremely unlikely to me. The front of Angie’s house wasn’t constructed with super fire-proof materials; it was the bare minimum of what builders use to meet fire code standards. As far as I know, that isn’t enough to completely stop an already raging fire of a burning front porch. But I am not an arson expert.
January 17, 2019
2:31pm
As we entered the courtroom and sat, I wondered if this would be the last time I saw the inside of a courtroom. Before the fire, I had never been inside a courtroom and my understanding of what the criminal justice system entailed was limited to what I’d seen on TV shows.
The judge entered the courtroom and delivered the sentence: time served and a few years of parole. The man would spend no additional time in jail. All he would live with was the inconvenience of having to deal with a parole officer for a few years.
“At this time, the defendant has an opportunity to address the court. Do you have anything to say?” the judge gave him permission to speak. He shook his head.
“This is an opportunity to express the remorse you feel for your actions,” the judge said, looking pointedly at him. He said nothing.
“Are you sure you have nothing to say to the court?” she presented the opportunity a third time. He shook his head again.
“I am dismayed that you are choosing to stay silent, but you cannot be punished for your choice,” the judge said with finality, with a sympathetic look over at us.
Later that day, I received a message from someone whose daughter was a manager of a seasonal calendar store, and this man was employed there. Her daughter was enraged because when he asked for time off work to attend the hearing, he said the whole thing was a joke and he had nothing to be sorry for.
“He just seemed to have no remorse at all for what he did,” she texted. “It’s so horrible.” I agreed, but I wasn’t surprised. I don’t know the thought process behind his actions, or the events that led up to them. He clearly felt his actions were warranted. The impact of those actions didn’t matter.
I can’t help but wonder if the individual who started the fire was a young Black man, instead of a young white man, would the charges and sentence have been different? This young white man from a good middle-class family was worth a second chance. If he hadn’t been white, would he still have deserved it?
Lesson 6: Tragedies build community.
In my Facebook swap group, somebody posted shortly after the fire that I was Hunter’s aunt. I started getting messages from strangers in the group offering to help. Some treasured items of Hunter’s were very damaged, and Angie wanted to replace them to have as keepsakes. Swap members jumped at opportunities to look for things while they were out shopping, or even order them from obscure places. The generosity and support our family received from strangers, especially from people who were familiar with loss or tragedy in their own lives, was incredible.
Even months later, I received messages from people who were thinking of our family and wanted to do something to help. People who had suffered losses of their own children, or who had experienced losing a home, or whose own houses were affected by wildfires, all reached out to offer their condolences, donations of clothing or other household items, and solidarity that we were not alone.
On the day of the sentencing hearing, almost a year and a half after the fire, I received countless messages from friends, acquaintances, and strangers, offering their support for our family. Even though the sentencing was a tiny byline in the news compared to the frenzy right after the fire, people still remembered. They still cared.
Moving forward after tragedy feels insurmountable. Knowing that others have your back and want to stand with you; that can make all the difference.
Lesson 7: New life comes after a fire.
Just like a forest begins to recover after a wildfire, so too did our lives after the day the house burned down. Some seeds on the forest floor actually have thick seed coats that prevent them from germinating until they are cracked by the high heat of a fire. My family’s resilience germinated from the intense trauma. I took my daughter to therapy, and she learned strategies to deal with the anxiety she had about death. She used her love of Pokémon to help her understand the heart and soul connection she still felt with her cousin. I went to therapy to deal with the emotional and psychological toll of the aftermath. I wrote a children’s book, and my husband illustrated it to work through our grief and help my daughter deal with hers. Angie became pregnant with twins, and Hunter’s baby brother and sister were born.
What grows back after a forest fire is different from what grew there before. Second-growth forests can actually become quite unlike the original landscape. The seeds that sprout first will play a crucial role in what develops there. Our own lives emulate the changing regrowth of nature. We consider our lives before the fire, and they seem so simple and normal. After the fire, the remaining destruction is still visible. The burned and charred remains slowly decompose and feed the soil. Seeds sprout and our second-growth forests are comprised of new ways of being we didn’t know before. Our new forests continue to grow taller, stronger, and more resilient than before.
