NNSL (Jun 01/98) - A three-year-old child had a close call last week when he accidentally set his bedroom on fire. Iqaluit Fire Chief Neville Wheaton said the boy was playing with a lighter in his room when the fire started.

"Everything follows. The child came out of the room and sat next to his grandma who smelled smoke. This is normal psychology. The child comes out and sits sheepishly. Everything points to that," said Wheaton.

The fire department responded to the call and was able to extinguish the fire within 10 minutes.

"The grandma shut the door, which was very important. It didn't get a chance to travel and the damage was confined to the bedroom," said Wheaton who estimated the total content damage was limited.

"It's hard to estimate because of the smoke damage and cleanup. The labor-intensive stuff is hard to estimate, but the property damage itself is probably $1,000."

Wheaton said the number of fires accidentally set by children playing with lighters has decreased over the last few years.

"There's not as much of that as there used to be because of childproof lighters."

To date, Iqaluit firefighters have received 70 calls, six of which caused property or content loss.

Wheaton said the majority of these calls are directly related to alcohol.

"The problem is not the numbers but the cause. Our cause is almost exclusively related to alcohol and cooking," said Wheaton.