Firefighters save nearby buildings during Nunavut school fire

Residents in Kugaaruk watch as Kugaardjuq school burns in the early hours of March 1. Firefighters couldn’t put out the fire but contained it enough to spare surrounding infrastructure. (IMAGE COURTESY OF B. TINAK)

Kugaaruk’s long-time fire chief, Vincent Ningark, got the kind of phone call Feb. 28 that most people would dread receiving late on a cold winter night.

At about 10:30 p.m., Ningark learned there was a fire at Kugaardjuq school, which serves about 300 students and 45 staff members.

The fire, at the community’s only school, turned out to be the biggest fire that Ningark had ever responded to, and in the coldest conditions he’d ever faced.

Environment Canada had issued an extreme cold warning in the Kitikmeot community: temperatures sat at -35 C Feb. 28 but felt closer to -56 C with the wind chill.

“I’ve never fought a fire like that before,” said Ningark, who also serves as the hamlet’s office manager. “Hopefully, it was the first and last time.”

Once the call came in, about a dozen of the community’s 21 volunteer firefighters showed up at the school with the department’s single fire truck and two water trucks.

The water trucks needed to be refilled throughout the night and that was a major challenge; a refill trip that usually takes 20 minutes took an hour and half, Ningark said, while firefighters had to first bring the water trucks back to the municipal garage to thaw before they could deliver more water.

Firefighters also went though a number of hoses, which kept freezing up in the cold temperatures.

“When it first started, all of us were out. Then we started rotating after midnight,” Ningark said.

“We couldn’t really get [the fire] under control. The building completely burned to the ground, unfortunately. But we contained it as much as we could.”

But firefighters’ efforts spared any other adjacent infrastructure, such as the nearby hamlet complex building and a Qulliq Energy Corp. facility and fuel tank, from catching fire.

By 5:30 a.m., March 1, some nearby residents were evacuated from their homes as a precaution, but they were able to return home a few hours later.

The Nunavut RCMP has called the fire “suspicious” and continues to investigate. But Ningark won’t speculate on the cause of the fire; he said it’s too soon to tell.

By the time he arrived at the scene, he said the fire was burning between the main floor of the school and its lower level. And there was little left of the structure by the time the sun rose.

Firefighters continued to rotate through the day March 1, with small crews remaining on site to ensure the embers didn’t burn out of control.

“My hats off to some of these guys,” Ningark said. “What they did was courageous.”

For all that Kugaaruk lost Feb. 28, Ningark considers his home community fortunate in many ways: lucky that no one was hurt or killed; lucky that no adjacent infrastructure was damaged; and lucky that the community’s single fire truck survived its toughest night.

But the loss of Kugaardjuk School is huge and will be felt by everyone in the community of about 900 people.

“The school was not just a school. It’s where our children had breakfast in the morning, through the breakfast program, and lunch,” said Ningark, whose own children attend the school. “There were intramural sporting events and square dances. It’s a big loss to the community.”

During question period March 1 in the legislative assembly, Kugaaruk MLA Emiliano Qirngnuq rose to acknowledge the school fire.

“This is a tragedy and disaster,” Qirngnuq told the legislature.

“I want to assure the community that I have been in close communication with the minister of education and I will be supporting all necessary action to address the situation. I ask all members to put the people of Kugaaruk in their prayers today.”

Education Minister Paul Quassa said the Government of Nunavut planned to send a government delegation to the community March 2 to identify temporary spaces so students and staff can go back to class as soon as possible.

—with files from Thomas Rohner