Jennifer Pritchett
Northern News Services

RANKIN INLET (Jul 01/98) - The Rankin Inlet fire department is concerned about the growing number of fires intentionally set in recent weeks, most commonly at the garbage dump.

Since a fire set by a nine-year-old playing with a lighter forced a family out of their home a month ago in the community, there was another fire inside a home that was ignited by a seven-year-old child playing with a lighter, as well as several fires at the dump.

Fire chief Vince Lang said that there have been five fires started by children under age of 12 in Rankin Inlet over the past year, a number that he said suggests the situation is of a "serious concern" in the community.

"The Kurok fire (a month ago) was the most serious," he said. "But they all have the potential to be serious."

As recent as last week, the fire department and several hamlet employees spent an entire day at the dump dousing a blaze that sent smoke across the town and could have become a threat to the community.

Assistant fire marshal Tim Hinds said that there have been many fires at the dump that could have become dangerous to the residents of Rankin Inlet.

"There are a lot of things that can happen -- you've got people with respiratory problems -- it may be hurting peoples' health, and it's costing the community money," he said.

"Depending on what's burning up there and on the wind, something can blow into the community and start a fire." Hinds said the answer is continued public education that will decrease the high numbers of fires set in the North.

"Between 1991 and 1996, we still had three times as many fire injuries and deaths as the rest of Canada," he added.

In addition, statistics from the NWT fire marshal's office indicate that children under 12 caused nearly a million dollars in property damages across the territories between 1995 and 1997.

These figures also reveal that children started 14 per cent of residential fires in 1995 and 17 per cent in 1996. Fire-prevention programs exist in the schools and parents should be teaching their children how to use fire safely as well as teach them the dangers associated with it, said Hinds.

"We would rather teach them how to use a fire and how it can harm them rather than scare them," he said. "Let them light the stove or the candles ... under supervision."