‘We need to do better’

Trish wants to move away from her fire-plagued neighbourhood in Winnipeg’s inner-city as soon as she can.

“It’s full of drug dealers, criminals,” said Trish, who declined to provide her last name. “It feels like the politicians don’t care about us or don’t want to listen to our concerns.”

A block away from her home on Alexander Avenue, two neighbouring vacant homes are charred and boarded-up. The home at 253 Laura Ave. was hit by fire early Tuesday, marking the third time it has been aflame in less than two years.

The record-breaking number of fires set in vacant properties in 2024 sparked repeated calls for the City of Winnipeg to bring back an arson task force. City data show there were 274 fires on vacant properties last year, nearly double the 158 blazes in 2023. Of the 274 fires, 123 involved vacant homes and apartments.

The city recorded 166 fires from Jan. 1 to Oct. 31 this year. The data includes fires in vacant homes, sheds, garages, garbage bins, vehicles and grass fires.

Early Tuesday, crews were called to 253 Laura St. around 4:15 a.m. The blaze in the two-storey home was declared under control about 40 minutes later.

The house was damaged in fires on June 15 and on Feb. 22, 2024, the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service said in a news release.

Trish said she can’t wait any longer for the city to address the issue.

“As soon as housing prices go down, I’m leaving Winnipeg completely,” she said.

The union for firefighters is pleading for the city to reinstate its arson task force, which was formed in 1999 by the provincial government to tackle the spike in fires in Winnipeg at that time.

“This is not a problem that is going to disappear,” said United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg president Nick Kasper said. “We need to do better. We need to bring back the arson task force, and we need to be investing in fire protection.”

“As soon as housing prices go down, I’m leaving Winnipeg completely”

Kasper pointed to several reasons for the increased fires, including arson and socioeconomic issues such as addiction and homelessness.

Vacant homes are magnets for fire bugs.

“As everybody in these neighbourhoods will appreciate, when you have a house that’s burnt once and it sits there boarded up, it’s just a matter of time, typically, until it lights again,” Kasper said.

On Sunday afternoon, fire crews raced to a vacant boarded-up house on the 600 block of Flora Avenue in the North End. The fire remains under investigation.

In late October, city officials said they were stepping up efforts to combat arson through the city’s Problem Property Committee and Arson Prevention Group, the same day fire crews battled five fires at vacant properties.

From Jan. 1 to October 30, the city inspected 739 vacant buildings and ordered 278 properties to be securely boarded. As of Sept. 30, it investigated 177 arson cases.

Kasper said the city’s efforts to address vacant property fires aren’t enough and Winnipeg has become an outlier among Canadian jurisdictions, Kasper said.

“We’re being compared in our industry to Detroit, when they declared bankruptcy and the city was burning down. That’s about the only parallel I can draw there,” he said. “This is unmatched anywhere in the country.”

Fire chief Christian Schmidt was not made available for an interview Tuesday.

The latest data indicate failure on the part of council’s executive policy committee, said former member Coun. Sherri Rollins.

“We’ve got folks that should be accountable in those chairmanships, advising council on policy,” she said. “When you’re asking me about urban blight, city councillors have to be paying more attention. But (executive policy committee) is asleep at the wheel.”

Coun. Evan Duncan, chair of the property and development committee, which deals with the issue of vacant and derelict buildings, did not respond to an interview request Tuesday.

Since 2023, council has amended the city’s vacant building bylaw several times to hold property owners more accountable. In 2024, council increased the inspection fee for properties that do not comply with the vacant buildings bylaw and increased costs for owners who keep their buildings vacant for years.

Rollins resigned as chairwoman of the property and development committee in January. She said there had been repeated instances in which council members weren’t able to get information necessary to inform their decisions about projects and expenditures.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca