Regina fire crews seeing more unauthorized occupancies, homes without utilities

Regina Fire Chief Layne Jackson said crews saw more people living in homes without utilities, or in situations of unauthorized occupancies in 2023.

“We are seeing a bit of a trend where folks are living in their homes without utilities or missing some utilities,” said Jackson. “So they have either been shut off or they are in a structure that’s vacant.”

Regina Fire and Protective Services dowsed 428 structural fires in 2023 – a number Jackson said was up from 2022.

Structural fires statistics are calculated from fires in commercial buildings, industrial buildings and houses. It does not include tent encampment fires.

Jackson said there aren’t any official numbers on fires that have been caused by people living in vacant units or without utilities at this point.

Regina fire teams have been working to connect people in situations of homelessness or lack of utilities with the proper community supports. Plus, Jackson said the fire department has a proactive network of inspectors that does routine checks at different homes or units. These investigators also monitor tent encampments.

“We are an all-hazards response agency,” said Jackson. “Fires are about half. It’s core to what we do in our service, but it’s about half.”

While the proactive group works throughout the city, Jackson said the inspector checks are most prevalent in Regina’s inner-city neighbourhoods like Heritage, Al Ritchie and North Central.

There were five fire-related deaths in Regina in 2023. Four people died in two house fires in the span of 11 days in December on Winnipeg Street and Rae Street. One person died in a house fire on Quebec Street in August after lighting a cigarette with a butane torch.

Jackson said there was one other suspected fire death. The fire department is waiting for details from the coroner before it can confirm that death.

Brice Perkins, a resident who lived near the home that burned on Winnipeg Street, said he had been trying to get City of Regina crews to take down the home for months. Perkins said the home had been abandoned, and some of the city’s homeless sought shelter in the home.

Perkins wanted the home to be taken down because it posed a safety risk to those who lived in the neighbourhood, and those who stayed inside.

The house was scheduled for take down in the fourth quarter of 2023, but it caught fire before its demolition date.