Arson charges laid in connection with house fire in remote First Nation in northern Ontario

A person has been arrested in Sachigo Lake First Nation inconnection with an arson investigation.

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 firefightingteam 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.

In a news release issued Friday afternoon, Paradis said members of the NAPS Crime Unit arrested and charged a 29-year-old man in Sachigo Lake on Thursday without incident.

The man was arrested and charged with arson damage to property as well asarson disregard for human life. He appeared in bail court on Friday and was remanded into custody with a future appearance date.

Sachigo Lake First Nation, where about 600 people live,is about 420 kilometres northwest of Sioux Lookout.

Meanwhile, 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 hasnot yet received a response.

'A perfect storm of catastrophe'

There have been several significant structuralfires in First Nations across northern Ontario this year:

• Aug. 11: A fire destroyed a church in Kasabonika First Nation.
• Aug. 1: The community'sband office and an abandoned home were destroyed in North Spirit Lake First Nation.
• March 2: A fire razed the only nursing station in Cat Lake First Nation.
• Feb. 1: A fatal house fire in Peawanuck resulted in two deaths and three hospitalizations.
• Jan. 25: An intentionally set fire destroyed the only school in Eabametoong First Nation.

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.

Arnold Lazare is deputy chief of operations for the Indigenous Fire Marshal's Service, as part of the National Indigenous Fire Safety Council (NIFSC). Earlier this month, he spoke to CBC's Superior Morning about theStatistics Canada report.

"It didn't tell us anything that we didn't know," Lazare said. "[But] it gives us empirical data that we can then use to go to the funders and the leadership to identify the areas that need to be corrected."

The NIFSC has been advocating for better education about fire safety and evacuations in remote communities, and getting working smoke alarms in all buildings, he said. It's also been pushing for legislation around First Nations housing being built to code.

"It's a perfect storm of catastrophe, in the sense that you have overcrowded housing that's substandard, without working smoke alarms and emergency evacuation plans, in rural communities that don't have great fire service," Lazare said.

'We are beyond thoughts and prayers'

Kiiwetinoong MPP Sol Mamakwa was in Fort Severn earlier this month. He says he's been in contact with the community's leadership, and was told there were no fire suppression tools available when the fire broke out this week.

"They just stared at [the building] and then they just watched it burn to the ground," Mamakwa said.

There's "an infrastructure crisis" in northern Ontario, he said, and both provincial and federal levels of government must step up to address it.

"When governments talk about reconciliation, it's just a word and I think that's it's time that we start looking at infrastructure and water, housing, and fire suppression equipment, training," Mamakwa said.

"We are beyond condolences. We are beyond thoughts and prayers from the government, and I think it's time to put resources into that."

A spokesperson for Greg Rickford, provincial minister of northern development and Indigenous affairs, told CBC News that Rickford was unavailable for an interview about the fires in Fort Severn and Sachigo Lake.

CBC News has also reached out to Patty Hajdu, federal minister of Indigenous Services. This story will be updated if a response is received.