After home burned to the ground, Délı̨nę leadership re-evaluating its fire resources

A family of three lost their home to a fire on Sunday in Délı̨nę, N.W.T.

Community leader Leeroy Andre said the former occupants are safe but that all of their belongings were lost to the flames. 

The disaster is causing leadership to re-evaluate its resources to deal with fires and how the community can be better equipped for the future. 

Andre said it's not clear why, but there wasn't enough water pressure coming from the community's firetruck.

"If the vehicles that we have aren't adequate," he said, "we're going to have these issues all the time."

Andre said Délı̨nę has one fire truck and it's about 25 years old. It also has two water trucks to support water supply. 

All three vehicles, along with a contractor's water truck, were on site to fight Sunday's fire. 

Andre said the community should have an agreement with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to share their wildfire equipment and provide their volunteer firefighters with training on how to use it. 

Despite the need to update equipment and training, Andre said that Sunday's house fire was so intense, it might not have made a difference anyways. 

"I would say within five minutes there were flames that were two or three meters high shooting out of the roof already," he said. "It went up like just a little matchbox."

RCMP did not respond to CBC's request for more information.

From talking to the home owner, Andre said a mosquito coil could be to blame.

He suspects a strong wind carried a spark from the coil to the house, which caught on cardboard over the floor. 

For now, the grandparents and granddaughter, about 12 or 13 years old, are staying with another family in town but Andre said the community government will work with them to find a more long term solution.