Fires stoke neighbourhood fears

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/07/2011 (5218 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Garages, sheds, fences and the backs of houses in Rockwood and Earl Grey keep being set on fire.

Usually, blue boxes or other objects are doused in gasoline and then ignited, often right up against the wall of a building or garage.

Asked about fires on Mulvey, Fleet, Dudley and Lorette avenues, the Winnipeg Police Service’s arson strike force provided the following statement: “We have had approximately nine set fires within or directly adjacent to this area within the last three months. Most of them are more minor in nature. We are actively investigating the incidents and are being very proactive in the area.”

But how minor the fires are depends on whom you ask.

Elizabeth Halprin and her husband were asleep at 2:30 a.m. on July 2 when their neighbour started urgently ringing their doorbell. Their entire garage was being consumed by flames as high as three metres, Halprin said. The side of the house was starting to catch fire and Halprin, who is expecting a baby in three weeks, said the whole house would have followed.

“I would have died,” she said. She didn’t sleep the next night, and she said the event has put her on edge.

At the end of June, John Orlikow, the councillor for River Heights-Fort Garry, held a community meeting to discuss the string of fires. About 20 people attended. Orlikow announced a safety audit, to be carried out by police in conjunction with community volunteers, and the creation of a neighbourhood watch.

The victims of arson are spread out throughout the neighbourhood.

Laurie Ahoff and his wife were sleeping upstairs one night in early June when they smelled a putrid burning odour. Their fire alarm went off, and they rushed downstairs to find a large segment of the back wall of their house on fire. Ahoff said about five fire trucks came to put it out. He got a damage estimate of $50,000.

A few blocks east, Liz Edmonds was out of town when someone set her recycling bin on fire. She lost a wooden garbage area, a play structure in her backyard and part of her fence. Luckily, a neighbour saw the blaze and called 911.

But Edmonds, who’s lived in the area her whole life, doesn’t feel threatened, even though the fire could have spread from the play structure to her house. “It’s not someone who seriously wants to do any real damage,” she said. “I don’t think it’s going to ruin the neighbourhood.

“I feel pretty secure.”

That’s not the case for Jennipher Alexander, who lives nearby.

“When the fire trucks wake me up, I have a few nights of restlessness,” she said.

Over on Dudley Avenue on May 29, Derek Kane smelled burning plastic and came out to find his recycling bin on fire and a man with a limp who immediately started running away. Kane chased the man to an apartment building and “scuffled” with him before the man inserted a key into the door of the building and retreated inside. Kane said he didn’t call the police because he didn’t want to get into trouble for fighting.

And on Lorette Avenue, Speed and Louise Johnson were sleeping when their recycling bins were set on fire and the flames spread to their shed, said their son, Mike Johnson. Luckily, a neighbour spotted it, put a hose on the fire and called the fire department.

Nearby on Lorette, Greg Mihalyk points across the street to his neighbour’s house, where a car sits out on the driveway with black marks on either side of the pavement. Mihalyk says there used to be a garage there before it was destroyed by fire.

Other neighbours mention reports of other fires, down the street, a few blocks over — there are plenty of rumours and people mention the sound of sirens during the night.

The safety audit will have police and neighbourhood volunteers doing a street-by-street analysis of how to make things more difficult for arsonists: encouraging people to cut away hedges, remove old piles of wood lying around, repair broken windows and store garbage inside.

Police have already begun, and Orlikow says he’ll be holding the next community meeting to organize volunteers in the form of a picnic in the coming weeks.

william.burr@freepress.mb.ca