Iqaluit city councillors pay tribute to Northmart fire responders

The City of Iqaluit’s acting chief administrative officer, Amy Elgersma. She said last night that those who responded to the Nov. 8 Northmart fire deserve a lot of praise. (PHOTO BY COURTNEY EDGAR)

Iqaluit city councillors heaped praise last night on the firefighters who fought last week’s Nov. 8 Northmart fire that destroyed a warehouse full of recently arrived sealift goods, but left the store and its pharmacy largely intact.

“Iqaluit just really came together,” Coun. Simon Nattaq said.

They also paid tribute to community partners and volunteers who helped elders whose row of housing units was threatened by the fire, which burned for 22 hours.

The incident really shone a light on the quality of the city’s emergency response team, said Coun. Joanasie Akumalik.

Coun. Kyle Sheppard said it is “almost miraculous the building is still standing today.”

“I think every time [the firefighters] drive by and see that building standing, it will be a testament to the amount of work they did when the fire was occurring and the training they did beforehand. They did an incredible job,” Sheppard said.

Sheppard praised the city’s acting chief administrative officer, Amy Elgersma.

“Everybody worked together really well but the response was really spearheaded by Amy Elgersma. She did an absolutely incredible job for the first two days, as well as over the weekend, and I don’t think the response would have been as adequate without her help throughout that time. She didn’t stop at all, for several days,” Sheppard said.

In an update, Elgersma also praised those who responded to the fire.

“The level of support and cooperation from our partners was extraordinary and contributed to the success of the response,” Elgersma said.

Within just six hours between last Wednesday night and Thursday morning, the Iqaluit fire department responded to six fires across the city, one of which was at Northmart. That fire started at about 1:40 a.m.

One building and four vehicles were damaged by these fires. Only one of these vehicle fires has been ruled as unrelated, Elgersma said.

The remaining four fires are still being investigated, she said.

A youth has been charged with arson and was to have appeared in court on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the North West Co. plans to re-open the store this Saturday, the company has announced.

“Northmart is working quickly to renovate the store in order to re-open. While there is no shortage of groceries, residents may wish to change their routines either to shop earlier in the day or later in the evening to avoid line-ups,” Elgersma said.

Firefighters used about 1,700 cubic metres, or 1.7 million litres, of water to fight the Northmart fire, said Andrea Spitzer, the communications manager at the City of Iqaluit.

That’s a little less than two-thirds of a typical day’s water drawn from the Lake Geraldine reservoir.

The fires occurred just two weeks after the conclusion of a task force that spent months working on a plan to replenish Lake Geraldine, when the city feared it might run out of drinkable water this winter.

Coun. Noah Papatsie asked Elgersma where people can get prescriptions filled until Northmart re-opens.

To that, Sheppard replied that if residents need a prescription refilled immediately, within the next five days, they should go to Valupharm or the walk-in clinic.

However, if a prescription can wait for more than five days, pharmacists ask residents to “hold on a little longer” so that the clinics can keep up.