Former tenants, nearby charity reflect on Regina apartment fire

A fire that heavily damaged an apartment building in Regina on Thursday has displaced a number of people.

The blaze burned a huge chunk out of a building on the corner of 12th Avenue and Halifax Street.

The fire department told media Thursday there were at least five suites in the heavily damaged building. The people living in those suites had to find shelter after they were forced out by the blaze.

Many of them went to Carmichael Outreach, a charity just a block away from the building.

Aurora Marinari, the development co-ordinator with the organization, walked through what happened that morning.

“One of our volunteers came in from outside shouting that the building next door is on fire. So essentially, everyone here just immediately sprang into action,” she explained.

The staff grabbed blankets and coats, and ushered people from the burnt building into their facility to keep them warm while they waited to see what would come next.

She said many of the tenants are poor, so the staff at Carmichael knew for sure those people would need help.

“We don’t personally know the tenants, but we know the type of tenants that are in that building. So we knew that their situation was going to be more dire given the circumstances. We just knew they were going to need to be taken care of right away,” Marinari continued.

It was a difficult moment as they cared for those who had lost so much.

“It was clear that a lot of them had been traumatized by it. They were unsure of what was going on and what happened. They just knew that somebody was banging on doors, saying, ‘Get out, get out,’ ” she recalled.

“Thankfully, from what we could see, no one was physically injured. It looked like it was likely more internal injuries of everyone just dealing with the trauma of what had happened.

“The people who live in that building are already suffering from poverty. So they didn’t have much, and now they just really have nothing.”

Carmichael and several other organizations worked together to get those tenants put up in hotels or set up in shelters.

Some of them are now staying at the Salvation Army Waterston Centre, which is also about a block away from the burned-out building.

Two men, Lanny and Robert, who didn’t want to share their last names lived in the building. They spoke with 980 CJME the day after the blaze.

They recalled it was a very scary situation.

“We (saw) the smoke coming out of the walls and we were wondering what that was, and someone said ‘Fire,’ so we were (some) of the first people to get out and after that everybody else come out,” Robert said.

The two roommates are now struggling to reconcile with the fact that they’re homeless.

“I guess we’re going to have to find another place,” Lanny said.

“It’s kind of rough living on the street, yeah, but this is good, putting us up here.”

The cleanup and investigation of the fire is still ongoing.