'A hard fought night': Fire destroys building, ambulance in Inuvik, N.W.T.

An overnight fire in Inuvik, N.W.T., destroyed an ambulance base and one ambulance early Saturday morning.

It took 22 firefighters nine hours to get the fire under control, according to Inuvik's acting fire chief, Jonathon Michel. The fire department received a call reporting the fire just after 1 a.m.

"It was a very hard fought night and our crew did quite well," he said, explaining the building's age and design made the fire especially difficult to fight.

"We had quite a fight in front of us in order to get ahead of [the fire] and we did as well as we could."

As of 10 a.m., Michelsaid the fire under control, ascrews continued towatchhot spots to guard against flare ups. He confirmed there were no injuries.

Michelsaid it's still early in the investigation, but at this point there is nothing about the fire that leads him to believe it is suspicious.

Sean Ivens, CEO of Advanced Medical Solutions Inc., which occupies the building located on Arctic Road, said the base was unoccupied at the time of the fire.

"We had one of the [ambulances] out," he said, adding that theother ambulance was lost in the fire, plus a lot of supplies.

Ivens said most of the destroyed supplies were part of the company's backup stock, so Inuvik residents won't see a gap in service from the fire.

He said a plane filled with replacement supplies is scheduled to fly to Inuvik by the end of the weekend and the company is working on getting a replacement ambulance there as well.