The Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service (WFPS) says the city has seen a “marked increase” in the number of fires over the past few years.
According to data released by the city Tuesday, the WFPS responded to 3,389 fires last year — 33 per cent more than in 2022, and a whopping 87 per cent increase since 2019.
Firefighters say last year’s increase was due primarily to outdoor fires, like those in trash containers, grass and brush, and “miscellaneous outdoor property.”
The head of the city’s firefighters’ union, however, says his experience has been that local crews have spent far more time dealing with structure fires, especially those in vacant buildings.
“(The increase in fires) is significant, but I’m not surprised,” United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg (UFFW) president Tom Bilous told 680 CJOB’s Connecting Winnipeg. “In fact, I’m surprised the numbers aren’t higher.
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“What stands out to me is the way they have classified these, saying the increase is due to outdoor and brush fires and so on. I really take issue with that. We know we have had way more vacant building fires than in the past and it just seems like our crews are going to structure fires day in and day out.”
Bilous said the dramatic increase in fires has contributed to the ongoing crisis of firefighters being dangerously overworked. Winnipeg, he said, has fewer firefighters and less equipment than it did in the early 1980s — despite having grown considerably in population and size over the past four decades.
“I can appreciate budgets are budgets, but our members proudly answer the bell every time it goes, and it has only gone one direction — and that’s busier and busier.
“We have done extremely more with extremely less. We have regressed … we cannot overtime ourselves out of this problem.”
The city said Monday that it’s taking steps to help crack down on arson-related fires, with initiatives like an increased budget for back lane cleanups — targeting neighbourhoods at risk of arson and cleaning up debris biweekly from April to October and monthly the rest of the year, with emergency cleanups performed as needed.
“The safety of our residents is our highest priority, and we want to ensure that neighbourhoods are clean and safe for everyone,” Mayor Scott Gillingham said in a statement.
“With the number of fires trending upward over the past couple of years, we are taking steps to remove hazards in our community with the hope that we will begin to see the number of fires decline.”
Gillingham said recent changes to the city’s vacant building bylaw should help, including new, safer standards for boarding up empty buildings.