Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services

NNSL (Dec 14/98) - Four Iqaluit children -- three of them under the age of 12 -- are responsible for accidentally setting a seven unit housing complex on fire. The blaze, which very nearly turned fatal for at least two of the boys, has, so far, caused in excess of $1 million in damages.

According to the Iqaluit RCMP, the four boys, aged five, 10, 10 and 12, gathered inside the Ninety North construction site last Sunday afternoon with a tank of gasoline. One of the 10-year-old children in the group began to sniff the gas and, somehow, the tank got knocked over and the fuel spilled onto the floor.

"One of the youths lit the gas on fire because, in his mind, it would stop the sniffing," said Const. Royce MacRae of the Iqaluit detachment. "It resulted in an explosion and one of the youths being injured."

Witnesses, who heard the explosion, told the RCMP they saw the four boys enter Building 2214, but only observed two of them leaving the structure. Several of the police officers began to search for the missing pair while others transported the boys in custody to the Baffin Regional Hospital.

One of the children was later released with minor burns to his hands, but the second child was hospitalized for several days following the incident due to respiratory problems caused by second degree burns to his throat, face and head.

Missing pair found

When fire Chief Neville Wheaton arrived on the scene, approximately four minutes after the fire erupted at 1:23 p.m., he was immediately informed that two children were possibly trapped inside the building.

"We arrived on the scene and the first report we got was that four went in and only two were witnessed leaving the building. The other two were potentially inside," said Wheaton.

The missing pair were picked up on the street by the RCMP about two hours later, but, according to Wheaton, had they been inside, their chances of survival would have been slim.

"When we got there, the whole front of the building was fully involved and fire was coming out of the doors and the windows. It spread really rapidly...those kids were lucky," said Wheaton.

Owned by Urbco Inc., the nearly completed complex still needed to have drywall installed between the individual units. Wheaton said it was the lack of separation between the seven three-bedroom apartments that allowed the flames to engulf the entire building so quickly.

Because of the close location to other homes, the team of firefighters immediately concentrated their efforts on containing the fire and, with the exception of one cracked window to a neighbouring residence, they were able to protect all of the other homes in the area.

"Our guys did a good job. If you look at the proximity to the other buildings, it was a difficult thing to do." Wheaton also noted that Emergency Measures Organization staff and members of the public kicked in and helped the fire department and the RCMP during the fire.

Urbco's vice- president and longtime Northerner Kenn Harper put the damage to the building in excess of $1 million and said the corporation planned to rebuild the unit next year. Alternate arrangements for the tenants -- employees of the office of the interim commissioner and their families -- have since been made.

"I don't feel very good about this. I'm quite upset about it actually. In part because of our building, but also because this type of thing should not happen. We have far too many incidents like this in the NWT," said Harper.

Telephone service knocked out

Northwestel's assistant vice-president for Nunavut said his corporation also had to foot a fairly expensive bill because of the fire damage. When the heat from the blaze radiated outward, it melted a main distribution cable and knocked out telephone and cable television services to the entire community. The system had to be completely rebooted and two cable splicers from Yellowknife were flown in to assist local workers.

"We were able to salvage most of the community within an hour or an hour and a half, but about 500 subscribers remained out of service," said Mark Hickey.

"It was an emergency situation for us. Communications are vital...and it was a considerable amount of work."

The remaining customers had telephone services restored by Wednesday and a technician from Eastern Arctic TV Ltd. said cable services were back on-line by Monday morning.

Hickey estimated Northwestel's damages and expenses at several thousand dollars and was investigating the possibility of giving the bill to an insurance company.

Territorial wide problem

While the most important factor in the fire's aftermath is that no loss of life occurred, officials said they were baffled by the growing number of fires in the North.

Wheaton said fire departments targeted kids at school and taught them about the dangers of fire, but, he said, parents needed to do more at home.

"The trends here are more severe. We have the worst fire loss in North America. We have to make people aware of the seriousness of this."

Const.MacRae said the children and their families involved in Sunday's blaze were set to begin family group conferencing with the RCMP later this week to help them understand the ramifications of their actions.

"At the root of it is kids sniffing gas. It leaves a lot of questions," said Const.MacRae.

Harper said he was just plain frustrated by this event and by all of the other fires across the Northwest Territories, most of which have been caused by children and youths.

"There are far too many children running amuck in the NWT. Children should be better supervised."