No injuries are being reported following an early morning fire at the Berczy Park homeless encampment.
Barrie Fire and Emergency Service got the call to the encampment around 12:35 a.m., confirmed Deputy Chief Carrie Clark, adding crews had to stretch approximately 500 feet of hose along the pathway into the park through the Berczy Street entrance in order to reach the area where the fire was.
“The approximate size of the fire was about 30 feet by 15 feet and consisted of tents, clothing and various items,” she said. “There were no injuries to anybody that was living there. If there was anyone in the area, they had scattered before we arrived. No one was in the area.”
Barrie police and paramedics also attended the scene.
Clark noted there was also a little bit of damage to a section of fencing located near where the fire occurred.
Clark said the official cause of the blaze remains unknown.
“To be able to determine what heat source was the first one to ignite it is really not something that we can determine,” she said.
“Open fires need a good metre of clearance around them of all combustible materials and any type of portable heater also needs a metre around it. Give your heater a metre. Depending on if it’s propane or other fuel, there’s always a risk of — if it’s used inside small, confined areas — carbon monoxide build up,” she said. “Sparks can travel quite a distance so be mindful of that.”
Neighbours in the area have complained about the homeless encampment in Berczy Street Park and last week the city handed out 21 bylaw infraction tickets to encampment dwellers.
The notices of action required — issued at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 3 — cited several infractions for behaviour contrary to city bylaws. Those included placing debris on city property contrary to the nuisance bylaw, fouling the land by urinating and defecating, and camping within a public park contrary to the parks use bylaw.
Residents of the encampment were given 72 hours to correct the issues, however as of 11 a.m. on Friday, Sept. 6 no action had been taken by the city.
