In the shadow of an arson hot spot

Danielle Pahpasay worries it’s only a matter of time before the vacant house next door goes up in flames and takes her duplex with it.

Her fears are not unfounded — the two-storey brick building on the 500 block of William Avenue has burned three times in three months, including around 5:30 a.m. on Friday when the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service said a fire crew passing by spotted smoke billowing from the derelict home and dispatched firefighters to extinguish the flames.

The blaze is under investigation, but Pahpasay said the former rooming house is a frequent source of break-ins, so it’s little wonder it caught fire.

“People are always going in there, trying to find some place to go to sleep, or old tenants are trying to get back in,” Pahpasay said.

“It worries me. I have kids, and there are constantly fire trucks or something going on over there. You just never know what’s going to happen… I think they should tear it down because you don’t know if our house is going to catch fire.”

The building was vacant when it caught fire on Sept. 26 and Aug. 18, WFPS said.

“I always see the city assessing it. It looks like they are coming by, but it looks like nothing is being done and it’s frustrating. What’s it going to take?”

Pahpasay, who has two children, aged nine and 11, said she once received a panicked call from a babysitter after firefighters knocked on the door to warn them the house next door was burning. In the four years Pahpasay has lived in her duplex, the former rooming house has been a constant problem, she said.

“I always see the city assessing it. It looks like they are coming by, but it looks like nothing is being done and it’s frustrating. What’s it going to take?”

It’s just one of many vacant inner-city vacant buildings susceptible to suspicious fires. Firefighters have been run ragged in recent months, prompting WFPS and city officials to plead for public support as they unveiled a new joint enforcement strategy alongside the Winnipeg Police Service on Friday.

Five vacant buildings burned that morning alone, the WFPS said in news releases.

Before responding to the William Avenue fire, WFPS dispatched crews to the 400 block of William Newton Avenue and quickly extinguished a fire in a single-car garage. The vacant house connected to the property was demolished after a fire on March 9.

Roughly two hours earlier, crews raced to a vacant home on the 400 block of Talbot Avenue, where they battled a blaze for about 45 minutes, WFPS said.

Just before 1:30 a.m., a fire in a shed behind a vacant property on the 100 block of Juno Street, spread to an adjacent garage and fence, the release said.

In a separate news release, WFPS said a fifth home burned around 11:33 a.m. Firefighters arrived at the vacant one-storey house on the 100 block of Burrows Avenue; the fire was under control 30 minutes later.

All of the fires are under investigation.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca