IQALUIT - Frozen hose lines, difficult access and inches of ice on firefighters' radios and gear meant battling a fire that destroyed a three-storey apartment building was "extremely difficult," said the deputy fire chief at the Iqaluit fire department.

Twisted metal, debris and ashes are what's left of a three-storey apartment building destroyed in a fire on March 24. Blaine Higgins, deputy fire chief at the Iqaluit fire department, said it was an "extremely difficult" fire to combat considering the weather, terrain and other factors. - Jeanne Gagnon/NNSL photo

What remains of the three-storey, wood construction structure built five years ago on the Road to Nowhere is twisted metal, debris and ashes. Blaine Wiggins said 18 firefighters and two fire chiefs worked 18 hours to battle the March 24 blaze.

"It was an extremely difficult fire given all the conditions, including the weather, the terrain, the type of building construction, the temperatures, the access to the building," he said. "I really don't know how it could have been any worse of a fire to fight."

As the building is not located on flat land, firefighters could not access all four sides, notably the eastern one where the fire started, he explained. And getting the equipment, such as the fire trucks, close enough for the aerial stream was difficult, said Wiggins.

"So we had to pull hoses through snowbanks, down ditches and down from the parking lot. That was extremely hard to do. Pulling hoses up to a fire is difficult, even in perfect situations," he said. "We were constantly working with our equipment. (There were) frozen hose lines, build-ups of ice, even our radios were collecting up to two, three inches of ice on our gear. It was hard to actually speak on the radio because they were frozen up."

He added as the hours went on, they worked out a rotation where about a third of the staff was working to get the equipment back into service, another third was on scene and the last third would rest until they rotated back onto the scene.

Wiggins said they have since learned the fire had gotten behind the building's fire protection systems -- gyproc and fire walls.

"It would have been much easier to fight the fire had it not gone into the walls and underneath in the floors and in the ceilings. That's why it made it such a difficult fire and such a fast fire," he said.

The building's owner, Mike Mrdjenovich of Nova Builders, said his company's intention is to rebuild but it is waiting to hear from the insurance company.

"We never lost a building to fire in my almost 40 years (of) building," he said. "I had little fires here and there but we never lost a building like this. It's not a good feeling. Nobody got hurt, that's the main thing. We'll build buildings but we can't get a life back."

He added the building was not sprinklered as they are not required for three-storey structures.

Wiggins said it's hard to speculate if outcome would have been different with sprinklers.

"It certainly would have helped us," he said. "It would have improved the odds but whether we would have been able to save the building or not is really questionable."

Wiggins said they will make recommendations on building construction and maintenance.

"We want to make sure the building owners have as much information that we've learned so we can hopefully avoid fires moving through the building like it did in this case," he said.

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