It has been about 72 hours since the massive fire on the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory and there are still a lot of questions without answers.
Word on the exact amount of damage, the cause of the blaze, and exactly how the the First Nations Technical Institute Aviation Program will move forward is not known.
If you ask their president, it will have to start with a new hangar. Suzanne Brant spoke to Quinte News less than 12 hours after the blaze, and says the hangar will have to be replaced.
“That’s going to have to happen and our planes. The planes, we had 13 planes, five were brand new, we just purchased over the past couple of years and that was $3 million. So you can imagine the building, the planes, getting up into the multi-million dollar range.”
Mohawk Fire Chief Scott Maracle says the fire inside an old World War Two style hangar, which was about 20,000 square feet, caused tens of millions of dollars in damage.
“There’s a need, the students they’ll be devastated, but we’ll work with our partners and we’ll keep their program running and get this rebuilt. If you want to make donations to FNTI for student support, we have a donation site … all the resources that we generate from there go directly to support our students.”
FNTI President Suzanne Brant outside what remains of the FNTI hanger Friday morning, after a massive blaze caused millions of dollars in damages. (Photo: Tim Durkin/Quinte News)
