CLASSIFIEDSADVERTISINGSPECIAL ISSUESONLINE SPORTSOBITUARIESNORTHERN JOBSTENDERS

NNSL Photo/Graphic


Home page text size buttonsbigger textsmall textText size Email this articleE-mail this page

Cigarette lit devastating house fire, says RCMP
Family of eight left homeless after blaze rips through Tuktoyaktuk dwelling on Christmas Eve

John McFadden
Northern News Services
Monday, January 11, 2016

TUKTOYAKTUK
Careless smoking has been determined to be the cause of a devastating house fire in Tuktoyaktuk over the holiday season.

NNSL photo/graphic

There were no serious injuries after a Christmas Eve fire in Tuktoyaktuk completely gutted this home. A family of eight is now homeless and is staying with relatives. NWT Housing Corporation owns the home but said it won't be rebuilt this year. - photo courtesy of Noella Cockney

The fire broke out at about 2 a.m. on Christmas Eve. Tuktoyaktuk RCMP Sgt. Phillipe Cyr said an improperly extinguished cigarette sparked the blaze which completely gutted the home of Roland and Rita Kuptana and their children. The home is owned by the NWT Housing Corporation.

Cyr said he believed the couple had six children living with them in the home at the time of the fire. Roland suffered minor burns to his scalp when he tried to put out the fire with a fire extinguisher, Cyr said.

"The house is a total write off," Cyr said.

"It was an unfortunate situation but at least no one was seriously hurt."

The contents of the home were completely destroyed.The RCMP's initial attempts to reach out to the Red Cross were unsuccessful, so the officers pulled together what they could, including gifts from the RCMP's annual toy drive.

"I called the Red Cross, who said they weren't available to assist. They said they had nobody in the area who could lend a hand so I asked if they could send anything up and they said, 'Sorry there is nothing we can do for you.' So we actually donated some money ourselves," Cyr said.

The Kuptana family has been staying at a relative's home in nearby Reindeer Point, according to Noella Cockney, Tuktoyaktuk's acting fire chief, who helped combat the blaze.

"It was engulfed when we got there. The only thing we could do was contain it. It's a good thing it had a metal roof which helped contain the fire," Cockney said.

It took about eight firefighters eight hours to fully extinguish the blaze, Cockney said. The temperature was below -30 C at the time.

Alana Mero, district director for the NWT Housing Corporation in Inuvik said the corporation currently does not have a single vacant unit in the community despite owning 160 homes there. She said it will be a while before the house will be rebuilt, at an estimated cost of $400,000.

"We work with the family. If something becomes available then we help them with that," Mero said.

"Our capital plan is set two years out. So are we going to rebuild this year? No."

The Red Cross in Edmonton oversees the NWT. A spokesperson for the organization said volunteers try to make arrangements for food, lodging and clothing in a situation like this one.

He said he isn't sure who told Cyr the Red Cross couldn't help.

An Internet crowdfunding campaign had raised $6,099 as of Jan. 8 for the Kuptana family.

E-mailWe welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.