Vacant Windsor Hotel in downtown Winnipeg goes up in flames, will be demolished: fire department

Thick plumes of smoke could be seen from blocks away as the 120-year-old Windsor Hotel in downtown Winnipeg went up in flames Wednesday morning.

Fire crews responded to a report of a structure fire at the now-vacant hotel, on Garry Street near St. Mary Avenue, around 10:50 a.m., according to Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service platoon Chief Brent Cheater.

"We were presented with a pretty daunting fire in a building that's highly combustible," he told reporters near the hotel on Wednesday afternoon, adding that there were fires on all three floors of the building when crews arrived.

Cheater could not confirmwhether anyone was in the hotel during the fire, but said the building should have been vacant and no injuries have been reported.

"We didn't send crews in to check. The fire had already advanced beyond what we would do as an offensive fire we went strictly defensive," he said.

The hotel has sat vacant since March, after it was closed under a provincial health hazard order.

A number of nearby cars were damaged after the hotel started to collapse, according to Cheater. An emergency demolition order has been issued and an excavator was expected to begin tearing down the building's walls late Wednesday afternoon, he said.

Work wasalso being done to reopen St. Mary Avenue and Fort Street, Cheater said, butGarry Street waslikely to remain closed into Wednesday evening.

The building was highly flammable since it was mainly made of wood, said Cheater, and with any structure of that age, there's the risk it contains asbestos and other toxic chemicals.

Firefighters would continue to "drown" the Windsor Hotel fire to prevent anytoxic chemicals from going airborne, he said. They would also dig through the rubble and check for hot spots as the walls are torn down.

The city advised nearby residents to close their doors and windows and monitor air quality as the smoke filled the air of downtown Winnipeg.

Some of the heavy black smoke after the fire beganwas drawn into the ventilation system of Beacon Hill Lodge, a nearby seniors' complex and nursing home on Fort Street, said Cheater. Crews inspected Beacon Hillto ensure smoke did not impact its residents.

The complex was temporarily without ventilation and elevator service as power was cut to the immediate areas near the Windsor Hotel, but it was able to secure atemporary source of power, he said.

Three Beacon Hill residents considered to be high-risk were monitored by nurses, and the rest were sheltered in place, but Cheater said no evacuation was conducted.

'Bound to happen': witness

An investigation into the cause of the fire is underway, but the building's collapse will make thatmuch more difficult, Cheater said.

The historical building and its parking lot have an estimated value of about $1 million, he said.

"It's sad to see it go," saidShari Lough, who wason break at work around 10 a.m. when she noticed the hotel fire, which "spread really fast."

She said it'sunfortunate nothing more could be done with the building after it was closed in March, but said the hotel had lingering issues when it was open, with fire trucks and police cars oftenstationed there.

"This was bound to happen, because it was a danger," she said.

Winnipeg has had a busy summer in terms of house and structure fires, said Cheater, who noted crews were responding to an apartment fire on SherbrookStreet when the call came in aboutthe Windsor Hotel.

The Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service is "one of the busiest fire departments in North America'' due to a variety of factors, one of them being the predominance of old buildings in the city, he said.

He saidWinnipeggerscanhelp preventfires at vacant buildings by reporting any suspicious activity observed near them.

"The only way we're going to stop problems of buildings spontaneously igniting throughout the city that don't have an official cause to them is by the participation of the citizens of Winnipeg."

Vacant Windsor Hotel goes up in flames

1 year ago

Duration 0:55

Streets are blocked off in downtown Winnipeg on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023, after a fire at the vacant Windsor Hotel. Fort and Garry were closed at St. Mary Avenue while crews fought the fire.