Lisa Scott and Roxanna Thompson
Northern News Services

Dettah (Sep 19/05) - The former fire chief of the Dettah fire department is homeless after fire gutted his 4,000-square-foot home on the east shore of Yellowknife Bay.

Peter Stiopu and his daughter Katrina were returning to their house late Thursday night after a day in Yellowknife when they realized something was wrong.

Katrina smelled smoke so they ran up the back steps of the house. There were smoke stains around the backdoor and it was warm to the touch, said Stiopu

As they hurried back down the steps Stiopu told Katrina to phone the fire department.

Stiopu describes what happened next as "heartbreaking."

By the time the fire trucks arrived flames were already bursting out the door.

"I was hoping they could get it out, but within half an hour I felt it was getting out of control," Stiopu said.

"The fire was so advanced that we spent minimal time in an offensive mode," said Chucker Dewar, deputy fire chief. "At that point, we considered the structure a loss."

Stiopu, Katrina and Matthew, his son, stood on a nearby rock crying as they watched their house burn to the ground. They stayed there from 11:30 p.m. to 4 a.m. the next morning. "I saw my memories, everything going to waste," Katrina, 15, said.

The damages are estimated to be around $500,000 and Stiopu doesn't have any insurance on the waterfront property, according to the fire department.

Returning to look at the remains of their house was difficult for Stiopu and Katrina.

They went back on Saturday night to search for Joey, their cat who was outside when the fire started and was probably still hiding in the bush.

The ruin was still smouldering as father and daughter tried to identify the charred contents of the house.

Among the ruins Katrina found a ceramic piggy bank her grandma gave her over 12 years ago. Miraculously, it had survived and is now one of her only possessions.

Stiopu and Katrina are living with friends until more permanent plans are made.

"This is the first day I'm getting back to reality," Stiopu said on Saturday, "yesterday was just a daze."

Stiopu designed and built the three-story house with the help of his family. They started in 1992 and moved in 1998.

The house contained everything they owned.

"We have nothing left," Katrina said.

Firefighters had to call for back-up to fight the blaze, bringing in a 12-person crew, two pumper and two tanker trucks, along with a rescue truck.

They had to manoeuvre the pumper trucks down a narrow bush road just to get to the location, about a 30-minute drive from Yellowknife.

During the course of the fire, crews pulled water from nearby Great Slave Lake, as well as returning twice to Yellowknife to fill up their trucks.

Because there isn't an active fire department in Dettah, city crews respond to fires in the Dene community and all along the Ingraham trail, Dewar said.

The location along the Dettah road made it that much harder to salvage the burning building, he said. "Because of the location and the difficulty in getting our apparatus in there, it was a challenge."

The firehall will be accepting donations of furniture and clothing for those wanting to help the Stiopu family.