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Fire tragedy highlights Pelican Narrows ‘dire’ housing situation

Jan 24, 2014 | 3:35 PM

paNOW Staff

The fire that fully engulfed a Pelican Narrows home last Saturday, killing two young boys and seriously injuring a 10-year-old girl, burned out of control quickly, according to one of the band’s councillors.

“It just went up like a tinder box,” Coun. Francis Highway of Pelican Narrows said on Thursday. He said the house was one of the community’s older houses, and was about 50 years old. He described the house as “dry.”

Days after the fatal fire, members of the Pelican Narrows band council are looking at the safety of homes, as well as some of the broader housing issues within the community.

The older homes were not built with the same materials that the newer homes are. This includes materials that better resist fires. Newer homes are built with Gyproc, or gypsum drywall insulation, and fire-proof insulation but the older homes are different, Highway said.

The newer homes require this kind of insulation in order to pass inspections, Coun. Eileen Linklater said. “If there’s renovation to be done in a house … if it [insulation] needs to be replaced, that’s what they have to replace it with.”

The Pelican Narrows community is looking to build more homes, and to replace some of the older homes, Linklater said. Homes for those who are homeless will be addressed first, she said.

But older homes also present another problem.

“The older homes didn’t have fire alarms, but the newer ones do,” she said. One of the policies Pelican Narrows councillors will look at is putting fire alarms in homes that don’t have them, according to Linklater. “Somebody probably has to go around in the community and do a survey in regards to fire alarms and if there’s no fire alarms … get somebody to install fire alarms for the safety of the occupants of that house.”

In some of the older homes built in the 1970s to the mid-1980s, the wiring is now damaged and wooden paneling was used in the construction of the homes, Linklater said.

She said that there have been quite a few inspections that have been done on homes. “But what can you do if there’s no money?”

Pelican Narrows is trying to work on homes after they are inspected, but Linklater said there is limited funding available. She said Pelican Narrows alone gets $1 million in funding – for housing, materials, renovations, operations and maintenance.

“Some of the people live in areas that don’t have sewer or water tanks, so they have to be purchased through that funding,” she added.

Linklater went to Ottawa before Christmas to advocate for housing at an AFN meeting. She took a single mother along with her, who was homeless, and she said the chiefs said they would do something about housing.

Highway said the community needs more funding to bring housing “up to par.” There isn’t replacement housing for the structures that have burned down, he pointed out.

This year, only two new houses were built in Pelican Narrows.

“We got 3,500 people and we’re … short at least 200 houses,” he said. And for some, the shortage means cramped living space.

“We have families, two, three families living in a house,” he continued, and said there’s a lot of homelessness because people have no place to live.
“It’s a very, very dire situation in the housing,” he said.

Officials have not linked the age or condition of the home to Saturday’s fire. The official cause of Saturday’s fire has not been determined. However, the RCMP said they suspected a candle may have ignited the fire.

On Saturday, a funeral will be held for nine-year old Josiah, and 10-year-old Solomon Ballantyne. Highway said the community is coming together to support the Ballantynes, and $9,000 has been raised in two nights to help the family.

“So, they’re coming together. They’re coping.”

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames