Sutherland Hotel destroyed by fire

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This article was published 15/01/2025 (255 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Acrid smoke clouded parts of Winnipeg’s inner city Wednesday afternoon, as fire crews frantically tried to contain an inferno that raged in the former Sutherland Hotel.

“It’s free burning right now,” Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service platoon chief Steve Kumka told reporters around 3:15 p.m., as flames destroyed the building at 785 Main St.

“It’s going to be a long day.”

Firefighters were alerted to the blaze in the boarded-up, three-storey structure around 1:25 p.m., after a passerby called to report heavy smoke. By the time crews arrived, every floor was engulfed in flames that compromised the building’s integrity, Kumka said.

Additional resources were called in after fire ignited a single-storey structure attached to the rear of the building.

By 2:30 p.m., more than a dozen emergency units were on scene, including numerous fire engines, police cruisers and an ambulance. Police diverted traffic away from northbound and southbound Main Street between Higgins and Jarvis avenues.

Firefighters trained their hoses on the top floor and doused the inside with water through broken windows. A drone buzzed overhead, hovering between two fire engines with aerial lifts extended.

Firefighters were enveloped in thick smoke as they sprayed the roof of the building from above.

“We’re surrounding the fire with a defensive strategy right now because it’s not safe to go in,” Kumka said.

“We think it’s vacant because it’s boarded up, but we don’t know if someone got in or anything. We would not know, we didn’t check it because… it’s just not safe.”

As of last month, the former hotel was up for sale — listed at $575,000 — for likely the third time in four years. No guests were staying or living in the century-old building at that time.

The fire intensified as the platoon chief provided an update to reporters. Flames briefly soared out the windows, devouring the exterior signs and causing smouldering debris to cascade to the ground.

Water pressure from fire hoses had peeled some bricks from the exterior, and Kumka ordered his crews to establish a larger perimeter because he feared the structure would collapse, he said.

Neighbouring buildings were evacuated as a precaution.

A Winnipeg Transit bus arrived to provide shelter for anyone who was displaced and the City of Winnipeg’s emergency social services team was on hand.

Kumka expected crews to remain at work throughout the night, and possibly into early Thursday, he said.

In a news release, the WFPS said the cause of the fire is under investigation and the building is likely to be a complete loss. The fire service urged people to avoid the area.

Heat from the blaze was intense enough to be felt from across the street, where area resident John watched crews work on the burning building.

“You’ve got fire trucks here that are fighting a fire they shouldn’t have to be,” said the man, who did not provide his last name.

“Mr. Mayor, you’ve got to do something… As a citizen of Winnipeg, I’m disgusted.”

Several burned-out structures and vacant lots are located within a few blocks of the former Sutherland Hotel — the result of recent fires that have chased out businesses, said Keith Horn, owner of the Northern Hotel on the other side of Main. He’s also chair of the North End BIZ.

Last week, Holy Ascension Greek Orthodox Church on nearby Euclid Avenue was reduced to rubble after it burned for the fourth time since 2021. It’s one of many structures that have been destroyed as Winnipeg reached a record high number of of vacant building fires last year.

“It’s like looking at somebody with a bunch of missing teeth. There are gaps everywhere,” Horn said about his neighbourhood.

“We never find out the cause of them. Is it homeless people breaking in there and starting fires to stay warm? Is it people inside stealing the copper or the metal and setting off a spark? Or is it someone setting their own buildings on fire?”

Horn said the number of businesses that operate in the North End has been slashed nearly in half over the last decade, shrinking to 57 from 110.

He attributed the exodus to fires, crime and the challenge of getting insurance in a neighbourhood that’s being treated like “the Wild West,” he said.

Kumka called the number of vacant building fires in Winnipeg concerning.

“I hope with our partnerships and our community groups, city officials and organizations, we can limit what’s happening and maybe decrease the numbers,” he said.

“Everybody has an obligation to keep their building safe, secure, protect the public and the responders,” Kumka said.

The Sutherland Hotel opened in December 1882 and was one of the first major buildings in Winnipeg to be located north of the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks, as per the Manitoba Historical Society.

Despite its age, the hotel does not have heritage status and isn’t protected from demolition. It was called the Palace Hotel in the early 1900s before changing to the Sutherland Hotel after 1910.

The hotel was known as a crack den and gang hangout a decade ago, but criminal activity had declined over the past five years, Point Douglas community leader Sel Burrows told the Free Press in December.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca