Federal funds earmarked for fire protection spent on housing instead
By JESSICA LEEDER
Toronto Star (Canada)
The reserve where two First Nations inmates burned to death in a “caged inferno” Sunday has no firefighting ability — its fire engine is broken, its fire protection money has been spent on housing and no one is trained to fight fires.
During Sunday’s one-hour afternoon blaze, the reserve’s firetruck sat in a junkyard area beside the dirt airstrip, where it was dumped shortly after it arrived in Kashechewan on a barge, broken, more than a year ago, said Derek Etherington, technical supervisor for Mushkegowuk Council, which provides technical and life safety training to several First Nations.
The reserve, which made headlines last fall when residents were evacuated during an E.coli scare, does not have a fire station, nor does it have a firefighting force. Instead, police officers tried to hack a back way to the cells using chainsaws and axes in an attempt to free Ricardo Wesley and Jamie Goodwyn. The men, both in their twenties, were locked in the reserve’s jail — an old, renovated house — when fire engulfed them around 2 p.m.