The city needs to rethink its approach to helping people living in encampments following a fire on the banks of the Assiniboine River Monday night, a Winnipeg councilor said.

The fire, which broke out around 6:20 p.m. Monday at the camp near McFadyen Playground on Assiniboine Avenue, quickly spread, consuming furniture and debris at the camp and approaching a tent neighbor before the firefighters arrived and extinguished it.

Advice. Cindy Gilroy (Daniel McIntyre) says the city needs to do more to move people from camps to shelters.

“We need to step up our game. We need to look at our internal encampment strategy. As a council, we really need to look at encampments in general and where we allow them,” Gilroy said in an interview.

Many people living in encampments don’t feel comfortable staying in shelters out of concern for safety and privacy, Gilroy says. She wants to see the city work with its shelter sector partners, as well as other governments, to address these concerns to encourage more people to take advantage of available shelter spaces.

A camp resident who spoke with CBC News said he heard a loud bang before the fire broke out, but he doesn’t know what caused it. The camp residents tried to put out the flames with water they had in jugs, but were unable to contain the fire.

Darby Hatfield, who saw the fire while walking, says her thoughts are with the people living in the camp.

“It’s unfortunate,” she said, “and I wish we could do more, and I wish they could get more resources.”

Abegeille Nganamon, who works at a nearby daycare and brings the children to the park to play every day, says she has never had any problems with people at the camp.

“The people here are very good, they are not aggressive. We come here every day. They tell us: ‘Hi, how are you?’ We contact each other every day.”

The city says it’s difficult to track the number of fires in encampments. The number of nonstructural fires — which include homeless encampments as well as other sources such as grass and trash fires — has fluctuated over the years, reaching a new high last year of 2,354.

In the first six months of this year, there were 1,151.

The burning smell lingers in the air at Camp Assiniboine, where a camp resident says fire prevention officers have visited in the past and advised them to space their tents apart, which they say , partly explains why the fire did not break out. propagated.

Lisa Gilmour, deputy chief of community risk reduction, says there are no plans to order residents to leave.

“Evacuation orders are very disruptive and can be very traumatic for people living in the encampments, which is why we try to use them as a last resort,” she told reporters.

Firefighters look for a “consistent pattern” of fire safety violations before issuing an evacuation order, Gilmour said.

A spokesperson for the mayor said the city hoped to receive part of $250 million announced by the federal government last month to help cities combat homelessness.

A spokesperson for the provincial Minister of Housing, Addictions and Homelessness, Bernadette Smith, said the province and federal government are still in discussions.

City needs to rethink encampment strategy after fire, says Winnipeg councilor

A Winnipeg city councilor wants the city to do more to get people out of encampments and into shelters after a fire broke out Monday night at a camp on the banks of the Assiniboine River.