No injuries are being reported following a small fire at a Barrie homeless encampment Wednesday night.
Crews were called to the encampment just off of Victoria Street shortly before 7 p.m. on Sept. 26, confirmed Assistant Deputy Chief Eric MacFadden.
“Two trucks attended and they had the fire under control pretty quickly," he said. "It was just a small makeshift structure of sorts that caught fire.
"No one was injured and no one was in it,” MacFadden added.
While MacFadden said there were reports of “explosions,” crews were unable to determine for certain what caused it.
“Typically, there can be little propane tanks or aerosol cans that can create those," he said. "It’s undetermined what it was, but if you hear reports of that, that is typically what it is.”
MacFadden said there were a few people around when crews arrived at the scene, who confirmed no one was inside the structure.
“We still determined that ourselves, but they said the person wasn’t there," he added.
City crews have been kept busy with homeless encampment fires in the past few weeks.
On Sunday afternoon, Barrie Fire received several 911 calls reporting smoke coming from a lakeshore lot, located between Toronto and Bradford streets near downtown Barrie. It was quickly extinguished with 350 gallons of water and firefighters cleared the scene.
On Sept. 18, Barrie fire crews also responded to a blaze at the Audrey Milligan Park and Pond homeless encampment, near Dunlop and Anne streets.
Fire crews were dispatched to a blaze Sept. 8 at the Berczy Park homeless encampment.
On Sept. 7, Barrie crews were also called to a morning blaze at a homeless encampment near Victoria and Anne streets. It was quickly brought under control.
On Aug. 2 at 4:30 a.m., Barrie Fire had two trucks on the scene on Boys Street where a 60-by-40-foot section of the homeless camp was on fire.
On March 13, a fire at a homeless encampment near Highway 400 and Bayfield Street. A few tents burned as flames reached into the canopy of the surrounding trees and smoked wafted toward the on-ramp nearby. The highway's on-ramp had to be closed temporarily.
On Feb. 7, Barrie firefighters were also called to a fire around the same location as Sunday's blaze. It was determined to be a "temporary shelter."
There were no serious injuries reported in any of those encampment fires.
