Two apartment units badly damaged in Iqaluit fire
Residents of 8-unit building forced from their homes Saturday night; no one believed injured
Firefighters battle a blaze in an Iqaluit apartment building on Saturday evening. (Photo by Arty Sarkisian)
Two vehicles and two residential apartment units were severely damaged in a fire in Iqaluit Saturday night that forced at least eight residents out of their homes.
“It went up really fast,” said Michelle Pretty, a resident of the eight-unit building at 4065 Anuri St. where the fire occurred. She said it was around 5:30 p.m. when she noticed the fire and called the fire department.
By 9 p.m., the fire appeared mostly under control, but firefighters continued their operations.
Pretty said she fled the building so quickly she didn’t get to shut the door behind her.
No one appeared to be injured. Pretty said residents of one of the units that was damaged were out of town.
The two units that burned are at the far end of the building. Pretty’s unit was on the other side of the building. She said except for possible smoke damage, her place wasn’t impacted by the fire.
She and other residents of the building, along with about 50 other people from the neighbourhood, gathered outside the fire scene while firefighters continued to work.
She told the firefighters there may have been at least eight residents inside the building when the fire started.
After it started, representatives from Northview REIT, the building’s owner, phoned Pretty to let her know there are rooms for her and the other displaced residents at Capital Suites where they could spend the night.
“If push comes to shove, I’d like to go lock my door,” she said of her apartment unit.
RCMP and fire department vehicles blocked off the Road to Nowhere, which leads to the area of the burning building, while firefighters were working. That left some residents having to walk up the hill to get to their houses.
Representatives for the RCMP and Nunavut firefighters were not available for comment Saturday night.
Nunavut must be the building fire capital of Canada. Something needs to be done.
I live in one of the two apartments. We are currently out of town.
We haven’t heard yet what caused the fire. But it must have been very fast.
Our house sitter was in the shower. When he got out the place was already full of smoke.
Luckily he managed to get himself and our dog out.
But unfortunately are two cats did not make it.
That is terrible, I’m really sorry about your cats.
So very sorry for the loss of your home and your cats. Terrible.
Looks like the fire origenated from under the building,
If you can locate the front page of NN from the fall of 1999 there are two cover stories. One headline ” the future of Nunavut” which tells of plans and hopes for the new territory. Just below is a photo of a new multiplex on fire. The story line reads the construction crew went for lunch . Three kids age 3, 5 and 7 enter the building , empty a Jerry can of gas and light it. The story goes on to say the ring leader of the gang is ” the 5 year old who has a history of arson”. Sad but true that one can note the irony of the 2 news stories. Not saying that’ kids caused the recent fire but looking at the history of school fires etc it merits a recognition of the need of patenting.
Makes you wonder what came of that 5 year old with a history of arson. Did he manage to turn his life around or has he become a BCC regular?
Seen him walking down the street with a bag of marshmellows
Id like to see a total housing report for the year of units added and units destroyed or removed from us.
Just off the top of my head, that big complex in Iqaluit burned, that was 30 or 40 units. We have these, we have had several residential buildings burn down among communities. We just had a row plex actually just fall on the ground with people in it in Cam Bay and destroy it completely taking it out of use.
From the last housing update, a total of 18 units were handed over to NHC from NU3000. Assuming some others have finished since but NHC really offers minimal updates these days and the Housing Minister made sure he was not around when the report from the AG Office was presented.
After all the fires…why has the city not made it mandatory to board off around the buildings so no one can get underneath without proper authority! There have been several fires started and a number of fires that thankfully got stopped due to good people of Iqaluit that stopped kids from setting fires underneath buildings, my parents house being one of them. I’m not saying this is what happened with this building but just a thought after reading the article and the comments. My prayers go out to all those affected.
omg, makes me remember seeing a young kids walking and looking at me as i drove by holding and clicking a Lighther high toward me,with a menacing maliscious evil smile, made me laft and dint take the kid seriously, but omg, after reading this i see i was 100 percent wrong.
On Saturday?
You may want to give the RCMP or Fire Chief a call as there’s an active investigation.