Firefighters issue caution after another carbon monoxide scare in Winnipeg

Emergency responders were called out to another carbon monoxide scare in Winnipeg on Monday night.

Fire crews responded to a home on Washington Avenue, off Watt Street, in East Kildonan around 11 p.m.

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Rick Asher said his 60-year-old mom lives at the house and called him when the CO detector went off.

Asher said he called the gas company, which took a reading and the CO levels rose from 100 parts per million to 500 in an hour. Fire officials say a reading of 100 parts per million is considered very dangerous.

Emergency crews were called and Asher took his mom to a neighbour's home where paramedics checked her out and determined she was OK.

The cause was deemed to be a furnace outflow that was clogged with snow.

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Last week, carbon monoxide was blamed for the death of one man at a Winnipeg business and for making 20 others ill. An investigation found that a vent cover on the chimney had collapsed, preventing the deadly gas from escaping.

And on Monday, the Viscount Gort Hotel on Portage Avenue and Route 90 was evacuated due to carbon monoxide. A reading indicated high levels of the gas. The problem was eventually traced to a faulty rooftop heater.

This year, up to Nov. 30, there have been 474 responses to carbon monoxide calls, the city says. That total doesn't include the calls from December.

In 2015, the year total was 600. And in 2014, the total was 741.

The latest incident prompted Alex Forrest, president of the United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg, to urge people to make sure their carbon monoxide detectors are working and to never ignore them if they go off.

He said the problem is that vents can become iced over and blocked as the temperatures go from mild to frigid to mild again.

"We're going to go to very warm temperatures where it's going to be melting, it's going to be very wet and almost immediately, on the weekend, it's going to drop down again to very cold temperatures," Forrest said.

"So you're going to see more of the same problems that caused some carbon monoxide probably continue for the next week or so."