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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The Yellowknife Fire Division and the Office of the Fire Marshal have fought and investigated three major structural fires in Yellowknife in 2012 to date.

On May 14, the Wade Hamer Mini Golf pro shop sustained significant damage in a fire that is considered suspicious in nature by the NWT Office of the Fire Marshal. - NNSL file photo

Two of these fires, one at Crestview Manor on 52 Avenue and the other at the Wade Hamer Mini Golf pro shop on Franklin Avenue, occurred in May. In July, another fire damaged the upper two floors of a home on Niven Drive.

While city officials declined Yellowknifer's request to discuss structure fires within the municipality, NWT fire marshal Steve Moss said his office had a fairly busy year investigating these three fires, as well as many other structure fires around the NWT.

"It keeps us hopping. One investigation can take you out of the general swing of things for as much as a week, and putting things together can take a month or longer," said Moss.

Along with investigating all fires as requested by municipal fire departments, the Office of the Fire Marshal (OFM) works year-round on fire prevention strategies and programs, he said.

Here is a breakdown of Yellowknife's three major structural fires to date:

Flames were contained to a single unit on the second floor of the Crestview Manor apartment building on 52 Avenue on May 12.

Smoke from the blaze caused damage throughout the building, however, and caused residents to vacate the premises from 1:30 a.m. - when the fire broke out - until about 11:30 a.m.

Yellowknifer reported at the time that the fire caused an estimated $100,000 in property damage. The OFM could not confirm the final tally.

"Costs associated with damages from specific incidents are not normally released," stated Dave Maguire, spokesperson for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs in an e-mail response. "The OFM does release an annual report that includes an estimate cost for damages by region due to loss by fire. The 2012 report will be released in the spring of 2013."

The Fire marshal's office has since closed its investigation into the Crestview Manor fire. While it was unable to pinpoint the cause of the fire, there is no reason to suspect foul play, said Moss.

"We can rule out most of the accidental causes," he said. "We're quite confident that electrical or mechanical aren't issues. Without more information, we don't have anything else to follow up on."

Adding to a string of financial problems and vandalism, the Wade Hamer Mini Golf pro shop was severely damaged in a fire in the afternoon of Monday, May 14.

Although city officials told Yellowknifer at the time the blaze was suspected to be an electrical fire caused by an old mini-fridge, the Fire marshal's office has since ruled the fire suspicious in nature.

The Fire marshal's office brought in a specialist to examine the building's electrical system, and that cause was ruled out, said Moss.

"If we can reach the conclusion that there was no other reason that a fire would have started there, we can determine it was suspicious in nature and probably deliberately set," said Moss.

Normally, when fires are set accidentally or are caused by electrical systems, people have been in the property soon before the fire, said Moss. In this case, no one had accessed the building for some time.

As well, the number of times the property had been vandalized made investigators suspicious of the cause.

The fire marshal has closed the investigation without determining the exact cause of the fire, and the dollar amount of damage sustained in the blaze will not be released until the 2012 annual report, due out in 2013.

Thanks to a fully-functioning fire alarm system, a Yellowknife family, including a baby, were able to escape a fire in their home on Niven Drive in the early morning hours of Monday, July 30.

Shortly before 3:30 a.m., Yellowknife's fire department was alerted to the fire, and found the family safely outside the home receiving assistance from their neighbours when they arrived. Crews prevented the fire from spreading to nearby homes, and contained the flames to the upper two floors of the four-storey structure, an official from the fire department told Yellowknifer at that time. Those upper two floors sustained significant damage, and the fire caused an estimated $500,000.

Since the Fire marshal's office is still investigating the blaze, Moss could not comment on the details of the fire. No cause has been released yet, although it has been confirmed that the fire started on a third-storey balcony, said Moss.

"We have no reason to believe it was suspicious," he said.

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