‘Predictable, preventable’: firefighters union leader laments year’s sixth fatal blaze

The head of the city’s firefighters union says fatal fires in Winnipeg have become so commonplace that he didn’t learn of the latest one on Monday night until he caught a news report Tuesday morning.

The death, in the 300 block of Trent Avenue in East Kildonan, was the sixth in Winnipeg this year.

“It’s so normalized in our organization that members aren’t even calling me to tell me about it,” Nick Kasper, president of the United Fire Fighters of Winnipeg, said Tuesday.

“That should tell you something.”

Fire crews responded to the blaze in a 1-½-storey home at about 8:20 p.m., the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service said in a news release Tuesday.

Firefighters arrived to find heavy smoke and flames billowing from the house. They were able to get the fire under control about an hour later.

The victim, discovered when firefighters were able to search the home, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Further details, including the suspected cause of the fire and the victim’s age and name, were not immediately available. WFPS said the investigation is ongoing. The Winnipeg Police Service major crimes unit is assisting, although it has not been determined whether the fire was deliberately set.

A neighbour said a woman in her 80s was the lone occupant.

The neighbour, who asked not to be named, said she was watching TV when another neighbour from across the street ran over and told her she needed to leave.

“I just got dressed, grabbed my parka and went to (the second neighbour’s) place,” the woman said. “I didn’t get back home until around 11 p.m.”

Flames, she said, were shooting out of the home’s front windows.

The windows were boarded up on Tuesday morning. A thick layer of ice covered the street and sidewalk as Manitoba Hydro crews worked along the east side of the home.

The street was closed to traffic until about noon Tuesday.

The death marks the latest in a string of fatal blazes in Manitoba in recent weeks, including several in Winnipeg.

Jim Russell, 81, died in a house fire on Nassau Street South on Feb. 28; one day later, 12-year-old Alexander Beaulieu Jr. died in a house fire in Portage la Prairie.

Gregory George Thomas, 68, died in a suspected arson at 216 Young St. on Feb. 12, resulting in charges against Michael Patrick Gordon, 40.

A few days earlier, Tyana Nattaway, 18, and Crystal Loonfoot, 48, were critically injured in a suspected arson at 365 Agnes St. There were 16 people in the rented home at the time.

Douglas Wayne Jr. Nattaway, 30, is charged in that incident. He was a relative of both victims.

In December, 45-year-old Clayton T. Stewart died in a house fire at 792 Nassau St.

“At our current rate, we’re on pace to exceed 24 deaths in a year,” Kasper said. “This isn’t accidental. It’s not coincidental. It’s not poor fortune. It’s a public health issue. It’s something that’s predictable. It’s preventable.”

Kasper said his members are seeing fires disproportionately affect seniors living alone, residents of aging housing, people in overcrowded homes, vulnerable and low-income communities and children.

“Frankly, fire loss is occurring on a daily basis,” he said. “On Friday, we had four fires in a single day.”

Kasper said a true measure of a fire department’s effectiveness is the fires it prevents.

He said WFPS has the slowest response times in Canada, the lowest per-capita fire-prevention staffing and the highest call volumes among comparable cities.

In its 2020 master plan, WFPS identified the need for four additional fire investigators, 11 prevention officers, two planning examiners, two public education officers and increases in suppression and training.

“Six years later, our call volumes have skyrocketed. We have more calls than ever. We’re operating with fewer fire trucks than we had last year, and not a single one of those recommendations has been implemented six years after they were published,” Kasper said.

“Frankly, this is of the city’s own making.”

City council made a last-minute change to its 2026 budget in December to increase the number of firefighters in the WFPS. Rather than hire 10 additional firefighters annually for four years, it will add 20 in 2026, and a plan to add 20 more in 2027 will be referred to next year’s budget deliberations.

The city did not provide years worth of fire fatality data requested by the Free Press by Tuesday evening. It did release a statement attributed to Christian Schmidt, chief of the fire and paramedic service.

“To have six fire-related fatalities in just the past few months is concerning. There were four over all of 2025.

“Winnipeg continues to experience more fires per household than comparable Canadian cities. This is primarily driven by population growth, higher rates of poverty, addictions and homelessness, and a higher prevalence of older homes that lack modern fire-prevention features,” the statement continued.

“Over the past five years, we have implemented recommendations outlined in our strategic direction, which integrates guidance from the WFPS master plan, fire underwriters survey, and the community risk assessment, and standards of cover reports.

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca