Nunavik fire deaths could have been prevented: fire chief

A Puvirnituq firefighter sits in the community’s new fire truck in 2012. The community lost two residents to a deadly fire June 17. (FILE PHOTO)

A June 17 fire that killed two people in the Nunavik community of Puvirnituq was likely started by a lit cigarette, an investigation by Quebec provincial police and the local fire department has concluded.

After the fire broke out at a residence June 17, neighbours and firefighters went into the burning home to rescue a number of children, firefighters in Puvirnituq said.

One of them, an eight-month-old baby, did not survive; the infant’s grandmother also perished in the fire.

But the Hudson coast community’s new fire chief says those deaths may have been prevented if Puvirnituq’s fire department was better trained and prepared to use its equipment.

“They had all the equipment, but nobody knew how to use it,” said Tiivi Qumaaluk, who took over the post of Puvirnituq’s fire chief June 23 — almost a week after the fatal fire.

Qumaaluk, who wasn’t in town the day of the fire, said that according to reports he’s since heard, firefighters were unable to start the pumps that they use to spray foam to suppress the fire. Nor were they able to use the air compressors that are used to refill their oxygen masks.

Qumaaluk believes the time it took the community’s fire department to respond to the June 17 fire could have spared the lives of the two people who died in the fire.

“It’s a top priority right now, training our firefighters in Puvirnituq,” said Qumaaluk, who has his Firefighter I certification and served for years as fire chief in his hometown of Kangiqsujuaq. “I’ve been showing them how.”

Much of the department’s equipment, including its new fire truck, arrived in 2011, the same year the region passed its Fire Safety Cover Plan, designed to bring the region’s firefighters and equipment up to Quebec standards.

But Puvirnituq’s 16-member volunteer fire department had no fire chief the week of June 17 — the former chief had recently resigned. And there were two more fires that week.

Firefighters were called to respond to two house fires June 21 and 22 (Nunatsiaq News originally reported the first fire happened June 20.)

No one was injured in those fires, but the first one completely destroyed a duplex, Qumaaluk said.

Both fires are now considered suspicious, he said.

Since the end of June, Puvirnituq firefighters have responded to a couple of ground fires, Qumaaluk said, and also tried to douse a fire at the community’s dump that was spewing toxic smoke over the residential part of town.

“The last few weeks have been crazy,” he said. “We’re a lot more active.”

Currently, there’s a firefighting instructor in Puvirnituq working with its volunteers, while a group of seven fire firefighters are scheduled to go to a training facility in Blainville, Quebec to complete their Firefighter I certification — an internationally-recognized standard.

Another seven local firefighters could achieve the same certification by the end of the year, Qumaaluk said.

“We’ll be ready,” he said.