Six Children Feared Dead in Suspicious Fire

Six children--nearly half the number of kids in the tiny, remote Pacific village of Quatsino--were feared dead in a suspicious fire.

The siblings--three girls and three boys ages 2 to 11--were missing after a fire Monday morning that destroyed the house where they lived with their father, police said.

Jay Handel, 45, the father, was in protective police custody. No charges have been filed, but authorities consider the fire suspicious because all four buildings on the property burned simultaneously. Handel and his wife separated in December.

Quatsino, a Vancouver Island hamlet accessible only by boat or air, has only 14 children, including the six missing. “To say that the community has been devastated would be an understatement,” said Sgt. Grant Learned of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.