(Vancouver) In the concrete bowels of Canada Place in downtown Vancouver, beneath a luxury hotel and near ocean liner berths, lie the charred signs of a Christmas Day tragedy.
A man burned to death in a tent, his body still on fire when Vancouver Fire Services responded Monday morning.
He is the latest victim in a series of tent and urban encampment fires across Canada.
The site is a covered area located in the middle of the loading docks, beneath the concrete structures that support the Vancouver Convention Center, the Pan Pacific Vancouver Hotel and the city’s cruise ship terminal.
Among the charred debris at the site Wednesday were pages covered in handwriting, a Chinese-language school textbook and magazines, and a Christmas gift bag.
Geoff Clark, acting deputy chief of operations for the fire department, said crews responded around 9 a.m. Monday morning.
“When crews arrived, they found a man who had succumbed to his injuries, deceased and still partly on fire and partly smoking,” Clark said.
“So they put it out with a fire extinguisher and then continued to put out the tent fire. »
There were no other injuries and no further details about the cause of the fire or the identity of the victim were released.
Data from Environment Canada indicates that temperatures on Christmas Eve reached a low of -1.1 degrees Celsius and the temperature on Christmas Day morning ranged between 5 and 7 degrees Celsius.
There have been a number of fires in urban tents and homeless encampments in Canada this winter.
Earlier this month, three people were found dead in a shed at a Calgary home improvement store after the fire, and a fire department official said the victims may have been using the structure as a shelter.
In November, a 54-year-old man and a woman in her 20s died in fires at an encampment in Edmonton.
The Saskatoon Fire Department has recorded more than 30 fires in tents or homeless encampments this year, compared to 12 last year and three the year before.
In Halifax, firefighters said they have responded to at least seven fires involving unhoused people since September, with one occupant escaping uninjured, saying he had operated a small propane heater inside of a tent before falling asleep.
The Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness said in a recent study of 11 Canadian communities that chronic homelessness increased by 40 per cent between February 2020 and last October.