Medical examiner calls inquest into fatal fires

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This article was published 24/06/2011 (5204 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — A spate of fatal house fires on Manitoba reserves has sparked the interest of the province’s chief medical examiner.

Dr. Thambirajah Balachandra announced Thursday he has ordered an inquest to look at the adequacy of firefighting abilities on Manitoba First Nations after the deaths of four people in blazes on two reserves earlier this year.

The inquest will also look into the installation of fire, smoke and carbon monoxide detectors on reserves and how often residences there are inspected for fire hazards.

No date has been set for the inquest.

Specifically, Balachandra will look at the deaths of two-month-old Errabella Angel Harper at St. Theresa Point on Jan. 16 and the deaths of Demus James, 73, Throne Kirkness, 2, and Kayleigh Okemow, 3, at God’s Lake First Nation on March 14.

Those deaths are just four of more than 30 people killed in house fires on reserves since 2005 — at least 13 children and 19 adults.

Following each death, a flurry of finger-pointing erupts over the rundown and overcrowded housing conditions that often are blamed in the deaths. But questions also often arise about the ability of reserves to battle the frequent blazes that erupt in homes often described as tinderboxes.

Errabella died of smoke inhalation after she was pulled from a burning house in St. Theresa Point. She was one of six kids asleep in the house around noon when the fire broke out. The blaze was caused by a malfunction in the wood heating system in the home. Errabella was the only fatality.

The firefighting on the reserve at the time was hampered because the fire truck wasn’t working and its key couldn’t even be located.

Two months later, a poorly maintained baseboard heater was blamed for the fire that killed James, Throne and Kayleigh. The federal government stopped funding a fire hall and fire truck in God’s Lake First Nation last year, leaving the community with its water truck for firefighting.

At least one other woman died in a fire on a Manitoba reserve this year. Daphne Benjoe, 41, was killed in Roseau River on Jan. 22 after a fire started in what fire officials later described as a “cooking mishap.” Her 16-year-old daughter, Alandice Benjoe, was badly burned.

In that fire, frozen fire hydrants hampered efforts to fight the blaze.

The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and the federal government recently completed a joint review to determine short-term and long-term firefighting needs on reserves. A spokesman for Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada said the report has been drafted but hasn’t been finalized and he couldn’t say when it would be released.

He said there is also a joint study underway between AMC and the Manitoba Fire Commissioner’s Office on the status of fire protection services on reserves.

Ottawa provided about $3.27 million for firefighting operations and maintenance on Manitoba reserves in 2010-11.

About $1 million of that goes to the Manitoba Association of Native FireFighters and tribal councils to provide training, education and technical assistance to First Nations fire crews.

In Manitoba, 57 reserves have their own firefighting capabilities. Five reserves call on the fire services of nearby municipalities.

Balachandra is mandated to call an inquest when he believes the general public would benefit from information that would arise from it. In 2007, for example, he called an inquest to look at the issue of young girls and the sex and drug trade in Winnipeg after the death of 14-year-old Tracia Owen. Owen killed herself in 2005.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca