Victims of N.S. house fire were all children
The victims of a tragic house fire that swept through a rural Nova Scotia home Sunday were all children under the age of eight, according to a family member who has launched a fundraising campaign to pay for funeral costs.
The children — a girl and three boys — ran in ages from an infant to a seven-year-old and included a cousin who was at the Pubnico, N.S., home for a sleepover, said Rod Hand, whose wife’s sister is the grandmother of one of the children.
“They’re still in shock,” said Hand, an artist from Conception Bay South, N.L., who is fundraising for the family by selling tickets to one of his canvas prints and starting a Gofundme page.
“It’s a blended family,” he said. “One was actually a relative having a sleepover, so there are a number of families affected.”
Two adults escaped the early morning blaze and were taken to hospital by ambulance. Ervin Olsen, great-grandfather of two children who died in the blaze, said Monday the father of at least one of the children remains in hospital.
The remains of at least some of the victims remained at the scene, an official said, and police used a cadaver dog to search the rubble of the two-storey home about 265 kilometres southwest of Halifax.