Iqaluit resident hospitalized with severe burns after May 9 fire

An early morning fire on May 9 destroyed one of four units in this house near Iqaluit’s city centre. (PHOTO BY PETER VARGA)

A woman caught in a recent house fire has been flown out of the territory with severe burns, according to a spokesperson from the city’s department of emergency and protective services.

The Iqaluit fire department responded to a fire at building 172, a single-floor house that accommodates four separate apartments, at about 4:45 a.m. on May 9.

On arrival, firefighters witnessed flames coming out a of window and door at unit D on the north side of the house, deputy fire chief George Seigler said.

A woman in the unit suffered severe burns to about half of her body, Seigler said May 11. She was first treated at Qikiqtani General Hospital then medevaced south for further treatment, he said.

No other occupants of the house’s four units — identified as A, B, C and D — were injured.

Owned by the Nunavut Housing Corporation and managed by the Iqaluit Housing Authority, the four-plex building has two doors on opposite sides of the house. Each pair of doors shares an enclosed porch.

Flames consumed much of the D unit, causing “heavy fire damage,” Seigler said. “That unit is pretty much a write-off.”

The fire caused damage to unit C next door as well, he said. Fire spread through unit C’s open doorway, and extended into the mud room, or entryway.

Firefighters had doused the fire by 5:10 a.m. Units C and D were left damaged by fire and water and are uninhabitable, Seigler said.

The fire department evacuated and cordoned off the building for the weekend and the beginning of the following week for safety reasons and to allow the RCMP and the Nunavut Office of the Fire Marshal to complete their investigation .

The four-plex is home to five residents — three in the undamaged units and two in units D and C, said Laurel McCorriston, general manager of the Iqaluit Housing Authority.

The housing authority accommodated all tenants at the Frobisher Inn immediately after the incident.

The woman who suffered burn injuries in unit D was actually not a tenant of the apartment, McCorriston said.

“I have no idea who was hospitalized,” the housing manager said. “She’s not a tenant of that unit.”

The tenant, and usual occupant, was out of the territory for medical treatment. The usual tenant left her apartment in the care of a house-sitter. McCorriston said the house-sitter — an unnamed man — was not occupying the apartment on May 9 either.

On the day of the incident, “I was told he was in one of the adjoining apartments,” the housing manager said. “Somebody took him in.”

McCorriston said May 11 that she expected tenants of the undamaged units, A and B, could move back into their homes “in the next day or so,” after the housing authority repairs minor damages caused by firefighting operations.

Meanwhile, the housing authority must find new accommodations for the tenants of units C and D.

“We have to re-house two people, and it’s not easy,” McCorriston said.

“We don’t have any vacant units at the moment so our assistant manager is trying to find temporary housing for them.”

McCorriston said she estimates damages to the building, which are limited to units D and C, amount to about $300,000.

The Nunavut Housing Corp. will inspect the structure and make a more accurate evaluation by the end of the week, she said.