SEARCHING RUBBLE
Pubnico Head, N.S., house fire kills four people, including at least two small children
Pubnico Head, N.S., house fire kills four, including at least two small children
Police used a cadaver dog to search the rubble of a twostorey home in southwestern Nova Scotia Monday, a day after a fatal house fire killed four people including at least two small children.
An RCMP dog handler spent about 20 minutes combing the jagged, charred debris of the Pubnico, N.S., house with the assistance of what he called a “human remains detection dog.”
At least three times, the black German shepherd stopped and sat motionless while his handler placed orange flag tape at the spot. Four fire trucks were later lined up along the road to stymie onlookers, and a blue tarp placed over much of the rubble.
Police are not releasing the identities or number of the dead, but family members have said four people died in the early Sunday fire.
The remains of at least some victims were “still there” in the house, West Pubnico Fire Chief Gordon Amiro said Monday.
He said flames had already engulfed the home when firefighters arrived Sunday and firefighters did not attempt to enter it.
“There was no way of going into the house. It was just a matter of putting the fire out,” Amiro said, noting that flames shooting out of the windows and roof. “There was nothing we could do in that situation.”
An ambulance was first to arrive on the scene of the fire, he said, and it took two adult survivors to hospital.
Ervin Olsen, great-grandfather of two children who died in the Pubnico, N.S., blaze, said the father of at least one of the children remains in hospital.
“We’re at the hospital now and ... the father is struggling to stay alive,” he said.
Residents of the area identified the father as a lobster fisherman.
The Canadian Red Cross has said the father’s common-law wife is with him in hospital, that their blended family lived in the home and that an infant boy was among those killed in the early Sunday blaze.
RCMP Cpl. Jennifer Clarke said the fire marshal, the medical examiner’s office and the force’s major crimes unit are all involved in the investigation. But she said that doesn’t necessarily mean police suspect foul play.
“That doesn’t really speak to the type of incident or mean that it is suspicious,” she said Monday. “It is a complex investigation. We do have those resources, so we are making use of them.”