Fire destroyed an unoccupied tent at Saanich’s tent city Sunday, highlighting ongoing safety concerns at the homeless encampment in Regina Park.
Residents say they used donated fire extinguishers and jugs of water to put out the blaze and prevent it from spreading to nearby tents.
.@SaanichFire is responding to a fire at tent city. Looks under control now but at one point flames had spread to the grass. pic.twitter.com/806GdgvuH5
— Katie DeRosa (@katiederosayyj) September 2, 2018
“It was lucky nobody got hurt,” said camp resident Sean Hayman.
Residents evacuated nearby tents and everyone pitched in to put out the fire, he said.
“I don’t know how this would have gone if we didn’t have the few fire extinguishers that people had donated.”
The Saanich Fire Department said it received a report of a structure fire and possible explosion at 12:05 p.m. and responded with two engines, a ladder truck, a tanker and a rescue truck.
“They found a smouldering tent fire,” said Brock Henson, assistant deputy fire chief. “They made sure the fire was good and extinguished and thankfully there were no injuries that took place.”
He said the cause of the fire remains under investigation.
“The individual who was occupying the tent wasn’t in the tent at the time, but he advised our incident commander that he may have left a lit cigarette inside the tent,” Henson said.
He added that it’s fortunate the fire broke out during the day when there were people around to take notice and respond.
“People contacted us very, very quickly and both occupants and ourselves were able to respond very, very quickly,” he said. “Our greatest concern from a life safety perspective is a fire like that taking place at night.”
Henson said fire officials continue to have safety concerns about the site, which is inspected every two days.
“Our focus is on preventing fires, not extinguishing fires and we are having a difficult time getting compliance with the fire prevention orders,” he said.
But Ashley Mollison, a community organizer with the Alliance Against Displacement, said the camp has been doing everything it can to comply with the orders. She pointed to the fact the fire was contained to one tent as proof that campers are making an effort to avoid overcrowding.
“The take-away for campers today is that the camp is capable of responding to accidents in cases like this,” she said.
”Accidents happen whether you’re housed or unhoused and again we’re going to be taking this important incident back and saying, ‘We need access to water. We need access to fire extinguishers to be able to suppress fires in the future.”
The incident comes as Saanich and the province petition B.C. Supreme Court for an injunction to remove 110 people from the encampment. Saanich’s Fire Chief testified last week that the tent city is at significant risk of a catastrophic fire.
