VANCOUVER — In the concrete bowels of Canada Place in downtown Vancouver, below a luxury hotel and near the berths of ocean liners, are the charred signs of a Christmas Day tragedy.
A man burned to death in a tent, his body still on fire when Vancouver Fire Rescue Services responded on Monday morning.
He is the latest victim in a series of urban tent and encampment blazes across Canada.
The site is a covered area amid cargo loading bays beneath the concrete structures supporting the Vancouver Convention Centre, the Pan Pacific Vancouver hotel and the city's cruise ship terminal.
Among the charred debris at the site on Wednesday were pages covered in handwriting, a Chinese-language school textbook and magazines, and a Christmas gift bag.
Geoff Clark, the acting assistant chief of operations for the fire rescue service, said crews responded at about 9 a.m. on Monday.
"When crews arrived, they found a gentleman who had succumbed to his injuries, was deceased and still partly on fire and partly smouldering," said Clark.
"So they put him out with a fire extinguisher and then continued to put out the tent fire."
There were no other injuries, and no additional details on the cause of the fire or the victim's identity have been released.
Environment Canada data showed temperatures on Christmas Eve reached a low of -1.1 C, and the temperature on Christmas Day morning hovered between 5 and 7 C.
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 home improvement store shed in Calgary after it burned down, 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 believed to be in her 20s died in encampment fires in Edmonton.
Saskatoon's fire department recorded more than 30 fires in tents or homeless encampments this year, up from 12 last year and three the year before.
In Halifax, fire officials said they have responded to at least seven fires involving unhoused people since September, with one occupant who escaped without injury saying they had been running a small propane heater inside a tent before falling asleep.
The Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness said in a recent study of 11 Canadian communities that chronic homelessness had risen 40 per cent between February 2020 and this October.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 27, 2023.
Chuck Chiang, The Canadian Press
