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Man battles school blaze with extinguisher

Hero lands contract to provide building security

CLICK PHOTO TO ENLARGE
Workers board up the burned-out back entrance of Nakasuk School on Oct. 31, the morning after it was enveloped by a fire started by arsonists. (PHOTO BY GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS)

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GREG YOUNGER-LEWIS

Eric Cauette is like a firefighter without a uniform.

Before Cauette tackled a two-storey fire at Nakasuk School with a single fire extinguisher, he had already attacked two other fires in the past.

Cauette, a 35-year-old Iqaluit businessman, says it just comes with his line of work - he sells fire extinguishers.

In previous encounters with heat and smoke, Cauette saved a burning snowmobile and a shack along the beach.

This time, he helped save a $20-million building and the immeasurable grief of replacing yet another school burned to ashes.

"It was something I could do to help the community," Cauette said in an interview. "I think it just happened, [that] I was lucky I was there.

"I don't think it's a hero thing."

Hero or not, politicians, bureaucrats and the city's fire chief are heaping praise on Cauette, saying his quick actions helped thwart a fire that was deliberately set.

The evening of Oct. 30 started like any other for Cauette. He was working late, installing a fire safety system in the kitchen of the Frobisher Inn. But shortly before 10 p.m., he went outside to get some tools from his van, and saw a giant plume of black smoke crawling into the sky from the back of the school.

Cauette couldn't see anyone near the fire, so he drove down to the school and, faced with a wall of flames, emptied one of his fire extinguishers on the inferno.

"What was going through my mind was we can't afford to lose another school," Cauette said. "The government is already struggling with money."

Firefighters soon arrived and finished the job. Underneath the smoldering mess, they found a charred couch, which police say must have been deliberately set alight and put on the steps, or vice versa. Vinnie Karetak, a CBC journalist who was first on the scene and also tried putting out the fire with a small extinguisher, said his wife saw a group of youths put the couch in the area earlier in the evening.

Cauette's intervention in the first minutes of the fire were pivotal in taking down the fire, according to the city's fire chief. Cory Chegwyn said the blaze would have been a lot worse, and may have penetrated the school if Cauette hadn't taking firefighting into his own hands.

"If someone doesn't put themselves in danger by doing it, I think that's great," Chegwyn said. "It's our community, we all have to look after it. I think he did the right thing."

"If it was a matter of going in a house that was on fire, where he could get trapped, I'd be worried."

Many residents and government officials were alarmed at the thought of Nakasuk's potential destruction. Three schools in Iqaluit and one in Coral Harbour have been hit by minor to catastrophic fires in the past four months, the worst being Joamie School in Iqaluit. That fire cost the territory around $10 million, and according to the minister of finance, inflated this year's deficit.

Although no official report has been released on the Joamie fire, foul play is not suspected. Investigators are treating the other three fires as arson.

The fire at Nakasuk School caused an estimated $40,000 in damages. This does not include the staff wages spent during the two days that the school was closed because of smoke damage in the halls and classrooms.

But the costs don't stop there. After a rushed meeting the day after the fire, authorities from the territorial government, the city school board, police and emergency services decided the outside of the school would be patrolled by private security on nights and weekends.

Although Cauette says there is no link with his informal firefighting at Nakasuk, his company, Arctic Circle Surveillance, was awarded the short-term contract to provide security guards. Cauette, as well as education and government officials, declined to say how much the contract was worth.

According to the department of education, the district education authority and government are also planning to install security cameras outside Nakasuk to protect it from further arson and vandalism. Officials are also considering improved lighting in the area.

Although the security guards have already been hired for Iqaluit, any new security measures would be available to schools across the territory, according to Pamela Hine, deputy minister of education.

As for the additional cost of boosted security, it's still too early to tell, Hine said, adding that protecting the school far outweighs the cost of replacing it.

"Any major fire would have a major financial impact on the government," Hine said.

Hine pointed out that, in the event of a major fire at Nakasuk, the government would also have to struggle with where to put the 500 students from Joamie and Nakasuk. She said the government has no contingency plan of how to deal with such a disaster.

"Trying to find place for them in this town would have been devastating," Hine said. "The programming that the children would have found, would have been your straight, textbook class, where students would be put in any nook and cranny and that would be basically it, just bare-bones education programming."

Police say they have no suspects in the case, and invite anyone with information to call the Iqaluit detachment at 979-1111.

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