Historic Firth House in St. Andrews 'a total loss' after fire
No injuries reported after fire at 1861 house, designated as provincial historic site
A St. Andrews home built in 1861 that had a historic site designation from the province of Manitoba went up in flames Thursday morning.
More than 30 firefighters from the St. Andrews, Clandeboye and West St. Paul fire departments battled the blaze at Firth House, also known as Hay House, in the rural municipality of St. Andrews.
Smoke from the fire could be seen billowing into the sky from hundreds of metres away.
Multiple emergency vehicles were on scene shortly after 8:30 a.m., with RCMP officers diverting traffic from away from the home, located on River Road in the community north of Winnipeg.
"We immediately started a defensive fire attack, and we've been in defensive fire attack for most of the day," said St. Andrews Fire Department Capt. Karl Harrison.
Harrison and the rural municipality of St. Andrews confirmed there was no one inside the home at the time of the fire, and no injuries were reported.
The front facade of the home has been completely destroyed, and Harrison confirmed the two-storey home "is a total loss."
While there's no risk to nearby buildings, he expected firefighters would continue to battle the flames until late Thursday afternoon and possibly longer.
An investigation into the cause of the fire will start once the fire is put out, Harrison said, with help from the Office of the Fire Commissioner if needed.
He said the home owner is aware of the fire.
Thomas Firth, who had been a Hudson Bay Company labourer, started construction on the house in 1861, according to the province of Manitoba, which designated it as a heritage site in 1987.
"Along the Red River, there was a huge number of fur trade houses that were built initially, and they were the homes of these early fur traders," said Gordon Goldsborough, head researcher of the Manitoba Historical Society.
"That's why we have such impressive buildings from the 1860s. It's because it was a retirement community for the fur trade."
It was bought in 1911 by Edward Hay, a businessman who was a member of Louis Riel's provisional government and served in the first Legislative Assembly in Manitoba, according to the province's website.
The house was one of only a few remaining stone houses from the Red River Settlement era, according to the heritage designation.
Goldsborough says many of the stone buildings in the area were built by Duncan McRae, a stonemason who was responsible for a handful of buildings, including St. Andrew's On the Red, an Anglican church in the municipality that is a national historic site.
While he's not certain if McRae built Firth House, Goldsborough says it's entirely possible.
The loss of the historic home is "sad … not only because it's an old building that is historically significant, [but] because it's rare, and there aren't that many other houses like it from that period," he said.
"Of course, it had a noteworthy occupant too, and that always makes a building more significant no matter what the building's made of."
Goldsborough said when he last visited the house in 2019, he thought it looked a little worse for wear, including what appeared to be a bowed front porch.
Having designation as a provincially historic site doesn't confer much in the way of protection, said Goldsborough.
"If the building is being neglected, it is really up to the owner of that building to ensure that it is maintained. There's no heritage police that come along and say, 'you must work on that building,'" he said.
Province wants historic database: historian
Goldsborough is concerned about other historically designated buildings in the province, including Holy Trinity Anglican Church, which was erected in the 1880s in downtown Winnipeg and has significant structural issues needing repair.
He said the historical society has a database of more than 9,000 places around the province that have some sort of historical significance, though only a fraction of those are officially designated by the province as heritage sites.
Goldsborough said a member of the provincial disaster response team approached him after a recent presentation and asked if the historical society was willing to share its database.
"They'd like to get a copy of it so they can use it in cases like this one, so that firefighters would know when they're dealing with a … historic building in Manitoba," he said, adding that a data sharing agreement is being discussed.
The opportunity to help preserve heritage is the backbone of the historical society, said Goldsborough.
"If in any way sharing this database would help do that, then we're definitely in favour of that," he said.
"So hopefully even though it won't help this particular situation, it might help ones in the future."
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With files from Arturo Chang