A father and four kids are believed to have died in a fire that demolished their home and ripped apart this First Nation community. Efforts were being made to recover and recognize the charred remains of the victims.
Distressed community leaders and inhabitants struggled to come to terms with the shattering loss that occurred about 12 hours after a fire in Port Colborne, Ontario.
“We’ve only started to understand what has happened,” said Randall Phillips, chief of the Oneida Nation of the Thames on Thursday. “Our community is suffering. There’s not a person in this community that doesn’t know one of the victims or the victims’ family.”
Soon after the incident firefighters and Ontario Fire Marshall Officials rushed to the spot. Relatives of the dead are heartbroken.
A forensic anthropologist had only managed to identify the remains of the adult and one of the children, Phillips said.
“They used to come in here often,” said the owner of a nearby store. However, she declined to give her name, saying she was shocked and deeply saddened.
This is not the first time that such tragic incident happened. Lately, in Port Colborne, Ont., two women and two children died in a house fire early on Wednesday. Similarly, in Woodstock two people died in house fires within a week.
Phillips said he couldn’t discuss the situations of what he called “a tragic fire,” but said his council would issue a news release Thursday morning.
“It’s a tragic situation,” said Phillips at the Oneida Community Centre.
