NORTH BATTLEFORD – Counsel for the defence thanked a Crown witness calling her a hero for banging on tenants’ doors in the middle of the night alerting them the building was on fire.
After getting a call at about 1:25 a.m. on Jan. 3, 2022, when firefighters arrived at 1441 – 102 Street in North Battleford, they found a three-storey, 20-unit apartment building completely engulfed in flames with numerous residents still trapped in their suites.
“Thanks for being the hero that we needed,” defence counsel Carl Swenson told witness Betsy Guetrey who was testifying Monday for the Crown against his client 42-year-old Naomi Yellowtail who is accused of starting the fire.
Court heard that Guetrey was up late when her step-daughter and niece said they could smell smoke. Guetrey went downstairs, saw an unidentified man, and discovered smoke coming from the laundry room. She closed the laundry room door and started to wake up residents.
“I was screaming ‘there’s a fire, everybody get up,’” Guetrey testified. “I started knocking on doors.”
When Guetrey made it back to her suite on the second floor the fire was too advanced to get out from the exit so she, along with her partner and the girls, went to the balcony.
Guetrey and her partner lowered the two teenage girls to the ground by holding them by the arms. They were lowered to a railing below and then jumped to safety on the ground.
The family had a pet in the suite they needed to get out. A bedsheet was used to tie around the dog and it was lowered to the ground. The bedsheet fell to the ground with the dog and Guetrey and her partner were left trapped on the balcony.
“My boyfriend grabbed me by the arm,” she testified. “A cop grabbed my shoe to lower me down.”
She said she ended up getting caught on a railing of the balcony before making it to the ground. Her boyfriend jumped off the balcony.
Guetrey told the court that the police officer and firefighters asked for their help to get other people from their second and third floor balconies.
“We assisted,” she told the court.
She said at one point, her neighbour was trapped on his balcony on the second floor and the smoke was so thick that they lost sight of him standing on the balcony.
Guetrey testified that in the few short months she had lived at the apartment building there were “a lot of intruders” and mailboxes getting broken into.
She told the court that one man would sleep in the laundry room.
“He would get kicked out and always find his way back in there,” she said.
Rapidly growing fire: Firefighter
North Battleford Fire Department Captain Rob Vanstone Campbell testified that when he and one other firefighter initially arrived, smoke and flames were at the front and side entrances and he saw people on the second and third floor balconies wanting their help. He said he and RCMP officers helped rescue people from their balconies.
Battling the fire, he concentrated his efforts on suite 105.
“It was a rapidly growing fire,” said Vanstone Campbell. “There was so much smoke at times I had to move back a little bit.”
Vanstone Campbell said he alternated his hose nozzle between a straight stream and a fog wider stream.
“A wider stream, that’s ventilation for us as a fireman,” he said, adding that turning the nozzle to make a fog spray helps divert smoke and flame away from a firefighter.
“A lot of time I had to turn it to a fog to get it away from me. That’s how much smoke was present. For the most part I was using a penetrating stream to get at the fire.”
The strong winds that night complicated firefighters’ efforts, court heard.
“I gave up applying water into 105,” he said. “After about 10 minutes I stopped spraying water into that suite. I knew the fire we had was a large fire.”
Vanstone Campbell testified that the fire was burning at the rear of suite 105, about half to three-quarters way into the suite.
“The smoke was very abundant. It was black in colour and with strong winds the smoke was funneling. My visibility was poor at times.”
Non-residents always causing problems
Former building manager Clarence Breker testified that suite 101 was being renovated at the time and someone broke into it and stole half of the new flooring. He said the suite was secured with a dead bolt but someone had used a crowbar to break in.
“I don’t know how they were getting in but that place was broken into three to four times.”
Breker told the court that less than a month before the fire, he had evicted a man in suite 305 who had been living there about three to four months. People not associated with the suite were always there and causing problems.
“I threw people out that were not supposed to be there, five times, always somebody different, sometimes four or five people.”
He said if the tenant in 305 wasn’t home the intruders would climb up to his third-floor balcony because they knew he never locked the balcony doors.
There were fire extinguishers on each floor and the laundry room.
“All of a sudden they were gone,” said Breker. “Two were missing. I seen it on the couch [in 305] when I was throwing people out. I think they discharged it. There was powder around the hallway.”
'Everybody was screaming': Tenant
Tenants Jalena Trvovski and Nikolia Trvoski who lived on the third floor also took the stand Monday.
“Everybody was screaming,” testified Jalena Trvoski. “My oldest daughter called 911 while we were getting up and dressed quick. On the street, the fire department was still not there but the police were there."
She said they saw heavy black smoke coming from the hallway door and knew they couldn’t escape that way and headed to their balcony. One of her daughters jumped from the third floor to the ground and injured her leg. The most traumatic part of their escape was when she dropped her son, the youngest child, to the ground from the third-floor balcony, testified Jalena Trvovski.
In September 2022, Yellowtail's co-accused, Keeanu Crookedneck was sentenced to three years in prison on a charge of arson with disregard for human life.
During Yellowtail’s four-day trial, Crown prosecutors Scott Bartlett and Cara Hill are expected to call up to 30 witnesses. Yellowtail is represented by Swenson and Mike Nolin. Judge Michelle Baldwin is presiding.
Story corrected to say that Rob Vanstone Campbell is a captain with the fire department.
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