Halifax Fire says it can't determine cause of blaze that killed 7 children

After hundreds of hours of investigation,Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency says it has been unable to determine the cause of the fire that killed seven children in their Spryfield home on Feb 19.

Chief Ken Stuebing said Wednesday that even though the fire department doesn't know the exact cause of the overnight fire, which started near a couch,investigators wereable to determine it was not suspicious and there was no evidence any kind of accelerantwas used.

The department also determinedit wasn't acooking fire or due to some kind of electrical fault or defect. The baseboard heaters were in the off position at the time and there was no other heating source in the home. There was also no evidence that the fire was caused by someone carelessly getting rid of cigarettes or other smoking materials.

"We investigated every piece of evidence available, and tested every possible theory to learn what we could about this fire. Despite our best efforts we are unable to say what caused this tragic event," said Stuebing.

Smoke alarms were found throughout much of the house, but only the ones in the basement were intact enough to test. They all worked.

"We can say that the fire originated in the back of the house in the main floor living room, near a couch, however at this time the cause will be classified as undetermined," said Stuebing.

Since January 2015, the cause of 25 per cent of major fires in the Halifax Regional Municipality were classified as undetermined.

The fire department has now closed its investigation and has no plans to reopen it unless new information is discovered.

TheQuartz Drive house fire led to the deaths of the Barho children:Abdullah, 3 months;Rana, 2;Hala, 3; Ola, 8;Mohamad, 9;Rola, 12; andAhmed, 14.

The children's mother, Kawthar Barho, managed to escape the blaze, buther husband, Ebraheim, was critically injured.

Fire officials would not talk about Ebraheim's current condition, but said they were not able to interview him during the course of their investigation.

It is not unusual for a fire of this magnitude to destroy evidence making it hard for fire investigators to piece together what happened, according to deputy chief David Meldrum.

"It's common for materials to be totally destroyed by fire or indeed removed or washed away by necessary firefighting activities, so this is also true here our fire investigators simply lack the physical evidence to make a conclusive determination of cause," said Meldrum.

The investigators say they could not find any evidence that the fire was related to the construction of the home or a manufacturing defect in the house. They do notbelieve there is an increased risk of fire to similarly built homes.

Not much information on the fireinvestigation was released until Wednesday.

The Barhofamily isoriginally from the war-torn Syrian city of Raqqa and lived briefly in Damascus before movingto Beirut.

The family arrived in Nova Scotia as refugees in September 2017.