Moccasin Flats tiny home fire caused by propane heater

“Warm is warm. People just want to stay warm.”

That is from End Homelessness Canada volunteer and one of the leaders behind the Moccasin Flats tiny home project Phillip Fredriksson, after an early morning fire in the encampment claimed a tiny home.

He said there were two people, a man and a woman, inside the home when it caught on fire, and both escaped without injury.

The home was the woman’s, Fredriksson said she returned to her tiny home from a cold weather shelter last night as the harsh winter conditions of the last couple of weeks had largely subsided.

“Someone gave her a propane heater, so she put that in her tiny home,” Fredriksson said. “We had advised against [that], but warm is warm.”

He continued, saying he was told the woman was folding laundry, cleaning, and organizing her space when she got tired and fell asleep on her bed with the heater still on.

When she woke up, the home was on fire.

Fredriksson said this has been the first fire or issue with any of the tiny homes at the encampment.

Once word got out that there had been a fire, Fredriksson said many community members showed up at Moccasin Flats asking to help and to see what the woman had lost and needed.

He added the woman is high on BC Housing’s list to get into subsidized or supportive housing, and he hopes she will be moved soon once space becomes available.

The home that burned down was one that Fredriksson helped build with money fundraised locally, not one that was donated from Calgary-based InGreen Building Systems around Christmas time.

This is the third reported time that emergency services have been required at Moccasin Flats so far this year, piling on top of two shootings that occurred earlier in the month.

Fredriksson said the tiny home construction has been on pause in the cold winter months and the team of volunteers that had been frequenting the encampment had been there less frequently.

“If I was to guess why there has been shootings and emergency services have been called – the lack of community presence makes a difference,” he said. “When I am down there with groups, people, organizations, the mood changes. People are more friendly, more helpful. As soon as we disappear, I believe people are coming into the flats from outside and causing issues.”

A solution, Fredriksson said he would like to see some sort of community or security presence at the encampment “at all times.”

He is unsure if this will come with the 44 unit supportive housing facility that will be built at the encampment.

“The community presence we have down there as volunteers… has, I believe, started to change the mentality of most of the people down there, and it also wards off a lot of troublemakers and gang violence,” he said.

Lastly, Fredriksson said he hopes his group can work closely with municipal and provincial levels of government inside the encampment.

“We know the people, how they respond to things, how they live, how they act,” he said. “Please include [us] in discussions when dealing with people from Moccasin Flats.”