THUNDER BAY, Ontario, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Four people died in a residential fire on a Canadian tribal reservation, a national chief said Friday.
While police had not yet confirmed the fatalities in Thursday's fire in the Mishkeegogamang First Nation community in northwestern Ontario, Shawn Atleo, the national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, said the tribe was grieving four deaths and offered his condolences, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
"It is with a heavy heart that I offer condolences to the entire community of Mishkeegogamang Ojibway Nation ... ," he said. "It is in difficult times that First Nations come together to mourn, to support and to comfort one another."
The cause of the blaze was being investigated.
Nearly a thousand people live on Mishkeegogamang's two reserves, the CBC said.
