Shift fire inspection focus to high-risk Winnipeg residences, not industrial sites: city report
Winnipeg saw 22 deaths in residential fires from 2015-22, none in industrial fires
Winnipeg firefighters want to change the way they inspect high-risk buildings, as a new report says the city has among the highest rates of fatal fires in the country.
The report from city administration, delivered to council's community services committee at its Wednesday meeting, recommends shifting inspection resources away from industrial buildings, which are currently inspected on a three- to five-year cycle, and instead focusing more on multi-unit residential buildings, rooming houses and homeless encampments.
"That's really where we're seeing more fires and where we're seeing a lot of injuries and deaths associated with those fires, so that's where we're looking to put our resources on the inspections," said Lisa Gilmour, the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service's assistant chief of community risk reduction.
Between 2015 and 2022, there were 1,961 fires in high-risk residential properties, compared to 306 fires in low- and medium-risk industrial buildings, the report says.
Those residential fires caused 374 injuries and 22 deaths, compared to 16 injuries and no deaths in industrial fires.
The city has the second-highest rate of residential fire-related fatalities, and the highest rate of residential structure fires with losses, among comparable Canadian cities, the report says.
The policy of focusing on industrial buildings was introduced in response to the 2012 Speedway International fire that caused $15 million in damage.
"What we're finding is that those [industrial sites] just don't have the high occurrence of fires that would make sense for the number of resources we're putting there," Gilmour said.
Residential fires, meanwhile, have resulted in deaths in the past year.
One person was found dead after a fire at a rooming house on Flora Avenue last April. Two others died after a fire in a six-suite building near the corner of McDermot Avenue and Juno Street in the city's Centennial neighbourhood last month.
Darrell Warren, the president of the William Whyte Neighbourhood Association, watched as another December fire destroyed a rooming house near the corner of Manitoba Avenue and Andrews Street.
He wants the city to change its approach to fire prevention.
"I think they need to work with these landlords more to make these properties safe," he said.
"There's good landlords, there's bad landlords. And unfortunately [with] the bad ones, there's a risk of loss of life there."
More than half of rooming houses fail inspections
A separate report to the committee on inspections of rooming houses in 2022 noted that, out of 147 properties inspected, more than half (57 per cent) failed their first fire inspection.
The report says inspections found 69 incidents of malfunctioning or missing smoke alarms, 61 inoperable fire alarm systems, 52 furnaces that required service or were missing a service report, and 27 houses had missing or malfunctioning fire extinguishers
Coun. Evan Duncan (Charleswood-Tuxedo-Westwood), chair of the community services committee, supports the change to focus on high-risk residential buildings over industrial.
"Hopefully, we will have less tragic stories of people losing their place that they're living, potentially loss of life.… Hopefully this mitigates that," he said.
The community services committee voted in favour of the proposed changes, which still need approval from council.
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