A day after a fatal fire took the life of a 5-month-old baby, and seriously injured his mother, the infant’s grieving father spoke to CTV News.

Cordell Brown said he was sleeping on the main floor of his southwest Edmonton home, when the fire started early Tuesday morning.

He told CTV News he woke up to his porch on fire, and said it spread quickly.

“I’ve never seen a fire go that fast,” Brown said.

Brown said his wife Angie was sleeping on the second floor with their baby, five-month-old hunter.

When the fire started, Brown said he tried to fight it with the garden hose before crews arrived.

“The fire was so intense,” Brown said. “From the time that we noticed the fire, because it was very instant, the fire started in about two seconds and it engulfed the whole house.”

He said he made attempts to get back in the home, to no avail.

“I tried to go into the house three times, but I couldn’t get in,”

Brown was one of six people in the home who managed to escape, but Angie and their son were trapped, and had to be rescued by firefighters.

Later Tuesday, Hunter was pronounced dead, and Angie is still in hospital, he said she’s been intubated and is under sedation. He said doctors took her out of sedation briefly, and he and other family members told her the tragic news.

“Took eight of us to hold her down, she didn’t take that very well and she was re-sedated,” Brown said.

“Doctors were saying there was pretty serious damage to her lungs and all of her airway, and there are burns from the smoke because she was in the fire for almost 20 minutes,” he said.

Brown told CTV News his mom had died the previous year; they lost a number of irreplaceable possessions, such as an antique dollhouse and a grandfather clock, in the fire.

“I’ll never be able to replace that,” Brown said.

Brown then said the couple had been trying to have a child for four years.

 “Hunter was a fertility baby, having Hunter was a $50,000 expense,” Brown said. “We loved him to the moon and back. He was our most prized possession. Our dogs are dead.”

On Tuesday, Edmonton Police said the fire was being investigated by the Homicide Unit and Arson Unit, and the death of Hunter had become Edmonton’s 32nd homicide of 2017.

An autopsy was completed Wednesday, and the Medical Examiner confirmed the infant died as a result of smoke inhalation.

Brown said he was with investigators for hours Tuesday, and saw them again Wednesday.

“We have lost everything,” Brown said. “We don’t have anything, even our cars have been impounded by the Homicide department, investigating everything.

“I don’t have a toothbrush right now, I don’t have clothes, I don’t have money – [I] phoned the bank today to get a card I can’t do anything.”

Meanwhile, as police investigate, Brown can only speculate as to what happened.

“The news so far has been saying its arson, I think that’s a factual thing because I have never seen a fire go that fast.”

He urged anyone with information to call police, and had a message for whoever was behind the blaze.

“Whoever started the fire, I don’t know if they did it as a prank or whatever, but it’s past a prank now, people, you almost killed six or seven people, you did kill one person.”

With files from David Ewasuk