Yellowknife woman says she made more than 20 phone calls to try and report fire

While trying to report a fire, it took almost 30 minutes for one Yellowknife resident to get through to the city's emergency fire services earlier this week.

Candace Seddon was going back to work after her lunch break Tuesday when she heard a fire alarm going off inside her neighbour's house at about 1 p.m.

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As an ex-volunteer firefighter from Inuvik, Seddon has a background in emergency response. She said she first tried knocking on the front door and when she got no response, she peeked in the windows for any smoke. She didn't see or smell smoke, so she called the non-emergency line to report the alarm.

"I couldn't just leave it and go back to work knowing there could be a fire inside," she said.

But the non-emergency number didn't connect. She tried again, and it didn't connect.

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"I kept getting the recorded voice, 'Your call cannot be completed at this time.'"

So she tried the emergency fire number. That didn't work either.

"I tried all the different prefixes," she said.

Then, she called every emergency and non-emergency number for the fire chief, deputy chief and safety officer she could find listed online.

'I must be having a nightmare'

Seddon made more than 20 calls from her phone in more than 20 minutes. None of them worked, she said.

She even tried to call the RCMP. That didn't connect, either.

"At one point I stepped back and said, 'I must be having a nightmare. Like, this can't be real,'" said Seddon.

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"I was starting to get really really concerned. I mean, the house still didn't look like it was on fire. But I thought, 'This is crazy that you can't get through to emergency services what if this was actually a raging fire?'"

It turned out there was an issue with the neighbour's fire alarm and there was no emergency.

Fire chief aware of problem

John Fredericks, Yellowknife's fire chief, confirmed to CBCNews the problem was on their end.

"We had issues with our phone lines yesterday, but that's been resolved," he said Wednesday.

Seddon wants to know what the city and emergency services are doing to ensure this type of situation doesn't happen again.

"It was just such a helpless feeling," she said.

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While Fredericks was aware there was a problem, a spokesperson for the City of Yellowknife said the city hadn't received any complaints and was not aware of any disruptions in its emergency phone lines.

In an emailed response, a city spokesperson wrote that they will provide more information on Thursday.