Residential fires destroy several homes in 2 remote First Nations in northern Ontario
CBC
Two separate structural fires have destroyed a home in Sachigo Lake First Nation and several residences in Fort Severn First Nation this week in northern Ontario.
Members of the Nishnawbe Aski Police Service (NAPS) observed a structural fire while on general patrol in Sachigo Lake on Tuesday around 7 p.m. ET.
Officers who arrived at the scene saw a home "fully engulfed," and a firefighting team arrived soon after "to begin fire suppression efforts," said NAPS spokesperson Scott Paradis in an email to CBC News on Thursday.
"Despite their best efforts, the residence was a total loss."
No injuries were reported, he said. The circumstances surrounding the fire remain under investigation.
Sachigo Lake First Nation, where about 600 people live, is about 420 kilometres northwest of Sioux Lookout.
Further north, NAPS officers in Fort Severn were called to the scene of a multi-unit residence structural fire on Wednesday shortly after 4 a.m.
While residents were successfully evacuated as fire crews battled the blaze, the building "was a total loss," Paradis said. An investigation remains ongoing.
Fort Severn, a remote community of fewer than 600 people, is about 710 kilometres northeast of Sioux Lookout.
CBC News has reached out to the chiefs of Sachigo Lake First Nation and Fort Severn First Nation, but has not yet received a response.
There have been several significant structural fires in First Nations across northern Ontario this year:
A report from Statistics Canada released earlier this month looks at fire-related deaths among Indigenous people in Canada between 2011 and 2020.
More than half of Indigenous people who died in a residential fire lived in a house that needed major repairs, compared to about 13 per cent of non-Indigenous people, the report says.
Additionally, about one in eight residential fire-related deaths among Indigenous people occurred in residences without a working smoke alarm.
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