Apartment fire that sent 8 to hospital was drug related, tenants say

A fire that tore through a Manitoba Housing building on Furby Street early Thursday, sending eight people to hospital and displacing tenants, started in a suite known for drug use, multiple residents told the Free Press.

“We’re kind of joking around that hopefully it’d be great if the rest of the building found out that it was his suite that now has everybody displaced,” said one resident, who has lived in the apartment for 15 years.

Another tenant, who has lived in the complex for 26 years, said concerns about the suite had been reported before, but added “nothing ever gets done.”

“It’s very different now,” he said. “We used to have an on-site caretaker, someone was guarding the place. We have nothing now. It went downhill in the 2010s, when they took the caretaker away. There used to be no problems here.”

It’s at least the third fire in a Manitoba Housing complex this year reportedly sparked by drug use.

The Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service were called to the three-storey apartment building at 25 Furby St. shortly after 3 a.m. Thursday. Crews arrived to find heavy smoke pouring from the building and helped evacuate residents while others escaped on their own.

Paramedics assessed nine people at the scene. Eight were taken to hospital, including one in unstable condition and seven in stable condition. A firefighter was also treated for a minor injury but did not require transport to hospital.

The fire was declared under control at 4:20 a.m. The city’s Emergency Social Services department and Winnipeg Transit assisted displaced residents with temporary shelter and support while the cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Most residents were taken to the Freight House Recreation Centre on Isabel Street, while some, including three who spoke to the Free Press, were still waiting to find out where they’d be going. All had been moved into temporary lodging by later Thursday, the province said.

”When a fire occurs, Manitoba Housing works in partnership with emergency response agencies and community organizations to ensure tenants affected by fire incidents receive immediate assistance, ongoing supports and help securing safe and appropriate housing as quickly as possible,” a spokesperson for the provincial government said.

The first-floor suite where residents said the fire began was taped off and guarded by private security on Thursday. A pair of baby strollers and two yellow jerry cans sat on the front porch against smoke-stained brick.

A third-floor resident said he opened his apartment door after the fire alarms sounded and was met by thick smoke.

A video he shared with the Free Press showed firefighters moving through the building’s lobby as smoke filled the common areas. Smoke damage extended to the building’s front entrance, where the exterior also showed signs of charring.

“The alarms go off often,” he said, adding that usually he just puts on his headphones to drown out the noise. “There are a lot of false alarms.

“But when I looked out onto the balcony, I could see smoke billowing out the front of the building. It was then when I said, ‘Well, maybe we should do something about this. That’s when I opened the door to my suite and saw the smoke in the hallway. I was like, ‘We gotta get the hell out of here.’”

Residents also pointed to the building’s troubled history.

In late 2023, Winnipeg police shot and killed a man after he barricaded himself inside a fifth-floor suite with a woman during a hostage situation. Investigators at the time said the man was also a person of interest in a separate homicide being investigated at the same address.

“You would have thought they would have put security here,” said one resident.

In April, Tristan Fraser-Smith died in his girlfriend’s suite at a Manitoba Housing building at 444 Kennedy St. after a fire started in the unit, reportedly causing an explosion. It forced dozens of tenants to flee the 16-storey apartment complex. His partner, Corinne Baxter, told the Free Press she believed his death was an accident, resulting from him falling asleep while using drugs.

In May, the body of 44-year-old Christine Flett was pulled from a suite at a Manitoba Housing building on the 300 block of Blake Street in Weston. Residents of the building said the suite was notorious for drug activity.

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca