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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A Nunavut woman convicted of setting a fire that destroyed eight Yellowknife townhouses last year was handed a three-year sentence Wednesday.

Sheila Jewell, 27, will also serve four months for escaping custody from a Fort Smith jail last fall.

"Fortunately, there was no loss of life as a result of this major fire," said Justice J. Edward Richard in NWT Supreme Court. "It's obvious the consequences could have been quite tragic."

Jewell, of Gjoa Haven, admitted Monday to setting the fire at Bison Estates on 52 Street.

Despite an apology to the victims on Monday, she flashed two middle fingers to the public gallery after the sentence on Wednesday.

Richard, who didn't witness Jewell's gesture, said he took into account Jewell's apology during sentencing, as well as her heavy drug use, depression and abuse.

He also considered the "real trauma, real anguish, real property loss, and real ongoing emotional stress" suffered by one of the victims.

"In one night, everything that made us feel secure was taken away ... burned by a woman's jealousy over her ex-boyfriend," said Delphine Pierrot, reading a victim impact statement in court Wednesday.

Pierrot and her youngest son, now 14, were sleeping when she heard a loud thump. She woke up, thinking it was a party and saw an orange glow out her window.

"My heart skipped a beat - the apartment below ours was on fire," she said.

Pierrot and her son struggled to get their shoes on - Pierrot twisted her ankle in the process. She escaped only with a housecoat, he with a blanket.

Jewell had visited her ex-common-law husband's home early that morning, where he allowed her to sleep on the couch while he and his girlfriend slept in the bedroom. The couple awoke to the couch on fire, and Jewell gone. Jewell and the man had split up eight months before.

Jewell said in court submissions she set fire to the apartment because she had bad memories of it and no longer wanted it to exist. It wasn't necessarily a grudge against her ex, she said.

"In any event, it is clear the prior relationship between the two was at the root of the action of Ms. Jewell setting the fire," Richard said.

The fire, which ripped through Bison Estates on Feb. 28, 2008, caused $2.2 million in damage, and an estimated $1 million lost in personal property.

"It almost goes without saying there were devastating consequences to the occupants of the building," Richard said.

Pierrot said she was thankful she woke up, or her three sons, aged 14, 17 and 20 would be without a mother.

But the pain of losing all her belongings - including precious family photos, her son's hockey equipment, and all their furniture and clothes - was nearly unbearable.

The single mother said she was proud she had purchased everything the family needed to re-establish her family's home. Pierrot and her youngest son had only lived in Yellowknife for six months at the time of the fire while she attended Aurora College for social work courses.

She graduates this spring, and plans to return to her home in Norman Wells, she said.

She still suffers anxiety attacks and has trouble sleeping, afraid of another fire. One of her sons is enrolled in counselling.

"Every day I'm reminded of the loss I endured," she told the court, sobbing, her son Brennan beside her. "I've never felt loss in this way before."

Outside court, Pierrot said she would have liked to have seen a lengthier sentence.

"The impact was so huge - it affected so many families."