Apartment block fire displaces 5 tenants

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This article was published 09/04/2024 (884 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Five people have been displaced after a blaze tore through a Brandon apartment building Sunday evening.

“It’s completely destroyed, it’s unlivable,” Edis Kazic, a tenant of the building at 422 12th St., told the Sun.

Kazic lived in one of the upstairs units and was heading back home after having dinner with his parents at their house, when he got a phone call that his apartment was on fire.

He said that by 7 p.m., when he drove up to his apartment, the building was engulfed in flames.

“Mentally I’m kind of shocked about it,” the 22-year-old filmmaker said. “I had a lot of my hard work and $20,000 worth of film equipment … so that’s all gone, and I have to start from scratch.”

At the time of the fire, Kazic was also babysitting his cousin’s cat, Kitty, who was rescued from the building by a Brandon Fire and Emergency Services member during their attempts to make sure everyone got out of the building safely.

All five tenants were safely evacuated from the building after the fire broke out around 6 p.m.

Brandon police closed Victoria Avenue between 11th and 13th streets so that firefighters could run hoses, while neighbouring houses were evacuated.

Public information officer Sgt. Dana McCallum told the Sun that the fire does not appear to be suspicious. Police say they are not contemplating charges as it appears that the fire was a result of a kitchen appliance in one of the units.

However, Brandon’s fire chief, Terry Parlow, declined to provide information as to the cause of the fire, saying the investigation is still ongoing and could take weeks or even months to conclude.

He said 14 members responded to the fire and crews had it under control within an hour or so, but they stayed through the night to put out smaller fires.

“There was a lot of spot fires throughout the evening and through the night,” Parlow said.

Kazic said he was told by other tenants that the fire was electrical.

“People heard a couple pops and a bright white light and then it caught on fire,” he said. “Luckily, everybody got out.”

Brandon Maintenance Services, which owns the four-unit apartment building, told the Sun that it wasn’t yet aware of the cause of the fire, but that firefighters have deemed the building unsafe to enter, and tenants won’t be able to salvage any of their belongings.

The property management company said it will refund the rent payments and damage deposits in the “next couple of days.” While the company will not pay for temporary lodging, it will try to help find new apartments for the tenants, owner and property management manager Dana Jenkins wrote in an email to the Sun.

“We are limited with what we currently have available, but our goal is to help the tenants as much as possible,” Jenkins said.

Tenant Travis Ramsden said he wishes management could do more for him after losing everything to the fire. He was out fishing in Boissevain when he got a call from his mom that his apartment was on fire.

“It’s just a bad dream, I was having a great day fishing, and I knew something in the back of my mind was going on,” he told the Sun. “And sure enough, I get a call.”

Ramsden said the building was old and he frequently had breakers go off, but he had been living in the apartment for five years because the rent was affordable and other affordable apartments are hard to find in Brandon.

Among the items he lost in the blaze were his fishing derby awards and medals that will be likely be irreplaceable.

Still, he said he was glad that he was out fishing instead of at his apartment at the time of the fire, when he would have likely been sleeping as he works night shifts.

“It’s just really hard to take it all in. Because I have a lot of memories in that building … I have a lot of memories with family and other people in my life … that building just kind of makes me remember a lot of good things,” Ramsden said.

Neither Kazic nor Ramsden had tenant’s insurance.

“Next time, if I live in a nice place, I’m going to get that 100 per cent,” Ramsden said.

Finding another place to live so that they can keep their full-time jobs is at the top of both Kazic and Ramsden’s minds.

Kazic managed to stay the night on a friend’s couch and find a change of clothes, but he is currently looking for a new apartment and some basic necessities. He started a Gofundme page on Monday morning to help him get back on his feet.

“All I can do is stay positive,” Kazic said. “I’m OK, people that I love are OK, and at the end of the day, it’s just a bit of money that was lost and I just have to rebuild it.”

This was the second house fire in three days in Brandon. Early Saturday morning, a 26-year-old woman was rushed to the hospital after she jumped from the third floor of a burning home on the 300 block of 15th Street. As previously reported by the Sun, the only damage visible from outside the home on Sunday afternoon appeared to be smoke damage done to a third-floor window at the front of the building.

On Monday, police told the Sun that while the cause of the fire is still unknown, the blaze was likely started on a mattress on the third floor. Police added that the woman did not want to speak with officers and has since been transferred to Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre for further treatment for injuries she sustained during her fall.

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