Yellowknife apartment fire suspicious: deputy fire chief
A blaze that destroyed part of a downtown Yellowknife apartment complex and sent two people to hospital Thursday morning is suspicious, fire officials say.
Tenants from at least eight townhouse-style apartments at Bison Estates on 52nd Street lost their homes in the fire, which began in or near one of the units at around 6 a.m. MT.
Another 10 families spent the afternoon waiting for their water and heat to be turned back on so they could return to their homes.
The two people who went to hospital have been released.
"At this time, I have no determination on the cause. I know the RCMP and the fire marshal's office are looking into what could've started this fire," deputy fire chief Darcy Hernblad said Thursday afternoon.
"So at this time, the fire is suspicious in nature, but that's about as far as it is right now."
While most of the fire was put out Thursday afternoon, crews are using a water tanker to put out hot spots or small fires that continue to burn as a backhoe demolishes the entire southwest end of the building.
"I would say eight of these units are pretty much destroyed," Hernblad said around 12:30 p.m. MT.
"There was 24 units altogether in this one-row complex and we were able to make a stand at one of the firewalls and work our way from there and work back, but we had to accept a loss right off the bat when we got here."
Hernblad said the firewall was the only thing that saved the rest of the units.
Emergency vehicles surrounded the building all morning, as a ladder truck shot powerful streams of water straight into it.
"The apartment's fire alarm was going off, but not our apartment — it was the next one, the one that was on fire, that one went off," Nicholas Lightburn, who lived in one of the destroyed suites, told CBC News on Thursday morning.
"Two minutes later, the guys came over and banged on our door and said the building's on fire."
Lightburn, his wife, his three-year-old daughter and four-month-old infant got out safely, but he said his possessions are likely destroyed.
"I'm thinking it's all toast. I've lost everything; nine years of work is gone," he said. "We just grabbed our important documents, because we kept them all in one cupboard, and we just got out."
All the displaced tenants are currently staying at the Capital Suites apartments. Anyone wishing to make donations for them can contact the Northern Property Real Estate Investment Trust, which owns Bison Estates.