Tent fires in Sarnia’s Rainbow Park raise concerns

Concern about recent tent fires at an encampment in Sarnia’s Rainbow Park has led city officials to plan to deliver fire safety messages to those living in the park in the coming days.

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Several tents were destroyed early Friday morning and just before noon Sunday in two separate fires in the park that has been the site of an encampment in recent months, said Roel Bus, Sarnia’s chief fire prevention officer.

No one was injured but Bus said officials are worried about the ongoing risk.

“We have reached out to other agencies to coordinate a safety campaign,” expected to be delivered in-person in the park by fire officials who will coordinate with the Sarnia police Integrated Mobile Police and Community Team (IMPACT) and others, Bus said.

“Generally, a fire safety message needs to go out and we hope to do that sometime this week,” he said.

“So far, we’ve been lucky no one’s been hurt.”

The campaign will include educating park residents about the dangers of lighting candles in tents. “There’s no safe way to do that,” Bus said.

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If someone is inside a tent that begins burning it might be difficult to get out safely in time, he said.

“You don’t have a lot of time and it’s all synthetic material that burns and melts at the same time. It can do some damage in a hurry.”

It can also be difficult to determine the cause of a fire involving a tent, Bus said.

“With tents and their contents, as soon as there’s a fire everything is gone so we have to rely on word-of-mouth.”

Bus said they heard from a reliable source that a candle was involved in the tent fire on Friday.

Because of the material tents are made of, “it’s going to light up quickly and the tents are in proximity, which is a big problem as well,” he said.

“When one tent lights up, it spreads to other tents quickly.”

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Last Friday, it’s believed four tents were involved in the fire connected to the candle, Bus said. On Sunday, two tents were burned.

“Any open flame fires are a threat to that whole camp, really,” Bus said.

“It’s still a public park and open burning is not allowed” under a city bylaw, he said.

Campfires and barbecues are also not allowed, Bus said.

“We did see some barbecues out there,” he said.

Sarnia firefighters have been called to Rainbow Park about 38 times since the beginning of March. Most were open burning issues or tent fires, Bus said. Others were mainly medical incidents.

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