A person was killed in a Sudbury tent encampment fire last month, and the city wants to prevent future deaths

On Dec. 3 a person living in an encampment in Sudbury, Ont. died when their tent caught fire. 

The city's deputy fire chief says fire crews are being "very diligent" to prevent future deaths as temperatures continue to dip.

"We've had a very light winter season to this point," said deputy fire chief Jesse Oshell.

"We are only now starting to see those colder temperatures and the snow come to our area. So we are at a very heightened sense of awareness."

Oshell said firefighters regularly visit tent encampments across the city to provide education on fire safety, and connect the people living there to social and housing services.

"Individuals who choose to stay in tents in those encampment type areas, they need to be very, very cautious and careful about using fire for heat and warmth, or any type of propane, diesel or kerosene type of heater," he said.

In an email to CBC News, city spokesperson Sacha Novack said the City of Greater Sudbury is aware of 114 people who currently live in 30 tent encampments spread out across the city limits.

Oshell said people living in the encampments often rely on fires – both outside and inside their tents – to keep warm during the winter.

He said carbon monoxide poisoning also poses a risk for those individuals, and tents aren't designed to be used around open flames or heaters.

The ideal, said Oshell, is for people to connect with the city's housing services, or use shelters, to get out of the tent encampments in the winter.

In North Bay the situation is similar to Sudbury, according to Brent Kalinowski, the city's community safety and well-being planner. 

"We don't have any large encampments, but there still are some areas of folks that are still living rough and now that it's getting even colder out, there have been some fires," he said.

Kalinowski said about 100 people in North Bay are living in encampments. He said those numbers have gone up since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We've seen an increase. I think that's fair to say that the majority of our communities have," he said.

"When the pandemic hit, for a number of different reasons a lot of those situations and people in need increased. And so, yeah, for us here in North Bay there has been an increase for sure."

Kalinowski said city staff in North Bay also visit tent encampments to connect people with housing and social services.