2 house fires break out in Iqaluit in 24 hours, no injuries reported
Firefighters endured frigid temperatures to battle two house fires that broke out in Iqaluit between Thursday evening and Friday afternoon.
Clouds of black smoke could be seen over the city on Friday afternoon, where a single home had caught fire around 2 p.m. in the Tundra Ridge neighbourhood.
Firefighters were on scene with two trucks, but the house collapsed and a nearby vehicle was destroyed.
The first fire started around 10:30 p.m. Thursday in a single storey, multi-family four-plex Iqaluit Housing unit on the corner of the Road to Apex and the Road to Nowhere, acting fire chief Nelson Johnson said in an email.
Johnson said 20 firefighters, two fire units and one ambulance attended the Thursday evening fire. They were there for about four hours in –49 C temperatures. Johnson described the incident as a "working fire" and said they were able to keep the fire contained mostly to the room it started in.
Several tenants were evacuated from the building. All the tenants affected from the other three units were helped by Iqaluit Housing and the Red Cross.
"The building was released back to Iqaluit Housing," said Johnson. The unit now has smoke and water damage.
Johnson said the cause of the fire is still being investigated.
