Causes of most Nunavut fires are left ‘undetermined’
96 out of 127 reported 2024 fires across the territory don’t have an official cause: fire marshal report
Frozen ruins of the Noble House lie on the ground after a January 2025 fire in Iqaluit that destroyed the building. (File photo by Daron Letts)
Investigations into the causes of the majority of Nunavut fires last year were not completed due to weather and limited resources, the territory’s fire marshal Stephen McGean says.
Out of 127 reported fires across the territory in 2024, 96 were classified as “undetermined,” meaning they either haven’t been investigated, remain under investigation, or the investigation has “insufficient information to classify further,” according to the 2024 Nunavut Fire Marshal’s Office annual report published May 29.
The Nunavut Fire Marshal’s Office is responsible for fire prevention, fire safety, and firefighter training across the territory. It conducts fire safety inspections and investigates the cause of fires deemed suspicious.
Of the 31 fires with determined causes, 26 were “accidental” and five were “incendiary” or arson.
In 2023, there were 140 fires — 95 of them of undetermined cause, 10 accidental and 35 incendiary.
McGean, who was appointed fire marshal in February, said he doesn’t know how those numbers compare to other Arctic jurisdictions Yukon and Northwest Territories.
“It’s something I’m looking to see, how the other territories are getting all their information and seeing how we can start adopting some of those practices,” McGean said.
For comparison, NWT Fire Marshal’s Office reported three “undetermined” fires in 2023, according to its 2020-23 summary report.
However, the report only counted investigations conducted by the fire marshal’s office. It did not include those that were reviewed only by local authorities.
Neither the fire marshal’s office nor the RCMP in N.W.T. provided the total number of “undetermined” fire incidents when asked by Nunatsiaq News.
The Yukon fire marshal’s office doesn’t have public data on the number of fires and their causes in the territory.
In recent years, Nunavut had several major fires with unknown causes. In Iqaluit, that includes one in January that destroyed Building 1088, known as the Noble House; also, a fire at a two-storey office building at 157 Nipisa St. in March 2024 that destroyed the office of Nunatsiaq News. As well, there was a series of fires that destroyed two churches in Kinngait in 2023.
McGean didn’t comment on those investigations.
There are several factors that make it difficult to determine the causes of Nunavut fires, he said.
First, in cases of minor fires, the investigators can “speculate pretty closely” on the causes but they don’t want to spend time and resources to make a definitive conclusion, McGean said.
“We’re not gonna spend money and resources to deep dive into, you know, just a misuse of cigarette butts,” he said.
Also, fire investigations often rely on eyewitness testimony from locals and firefighters on the ground. However, most of the firefighters in the territory are volunteers and might not have the expertise necessary for the investigations, McGean said.
Finally, the northern climate can get in the way.
“It’s mind-boggling to think that, but it’s hard to try to find an origin or a cause when you have 34 inches of ice built up on everything,” McGean said.
To extinguish fires, firefighters generally use a lot of water that freezes under the Arctic temperature and covers up the evidence. Often, investigations are put on pause until the ice thaws, McGean said.
“I would very much like to be able to say like this is cold, cut and dry, incendiary or accidental or a mechanical or electrical failure, but again, it all depends on the call. And each call is always different and unique,” he said.
Come onn we all know its kids running around at 5am. Undetermined? Come on.
There’s what you know, and then there’s what you can prove. Those can be very different things.
If there’s a fire at 3 in the morning in a vacant home that’s had no one living there fore two or three years, has had the power turned off, and no furnace running, and the fire began near a door that had been busted open, then yes, there’s a good reason to suspect someone started it. If some kids had been seen running around the area an hour or so before with a lighter, then yes, there might even be a good reason to suspect who started it.
But if they started it with a lighter, which they took with them after the fire started, some loose paper, and some scrap wood that’s all over the place in communities, there’s likely not going to be any evidence left what started it: it literally burned away. Maybe the busted door had been open for weeks, so you don’t know for sure who might have had access. Maybe the fire hadn’t been intentional but accidental, caused by someone smoking and the discarded butt had fallen in some garbage. Maybe the butt had been tossed by someone not even in the house but had been carried by the wind inside when they flicked it away and then, in million-to-one odds, landed on a piece of paper still hot enough to ignite it (I’ve seen it happen). Maybe the fire had been set intentionally, but the day before, and had smoldered away, unseen, and hadn’t been started by those kids. And since it’s an old abandoned building, and no one was hurt, and no one lost their stuff, there isn’t going to be a rush to fly in forensic investigators and conduct a full examination. So yes, officially it is undetermined.
But they would be able to say it was arson. they might not be able to prove who did it, but they can figure out where it stared and can determine that it was not accidental. just because someone didnt mean for the building to burn down but they were playing with building a fire in the house or under the building and it did lead to burning it down then yes that is arson. And that should be said as the cause.
Or even Adults are going around in the middle of the night or day time. Maybe it was a real upset adult that got evicted from that building or from the homeless shelter as it is so close to that shelter.
I mean thats not true… it’s usually a company, narwhal with the noble house. Hessa contracting with the dental building. Etc
Kids – 49%
Drunks – 49%
Others – 2%
Most fires in Kugluktuk are highly suspicious like buildings that have been for sale for 30 years but have no real value, or say like a contractor that had a duplex that burned and then built a shell to replace it? or the contractors before them that had there shop burn down but moved some vehicles out before the fire..humm makes you wonder.
The main problem I see with fires is there’s no control, loaders remove all the “evidence” before the fire inspector ever makes it too the community, every fire should be roped off by RCMP, going to be nearly impossible for private home owners to get insurance soon!!!!!
Just goes to show how incompetent Government of Nunavut really is.
Oh, no. This doesn’t even begin to fathom the depths of GN dysfunction. Not by a long shot.
It really is astonishing how dysfunctional, corrupt and shameless Nunavut has become in 25 years.