Majority of fire deaths and injuries happen in the lower city

Most of the deaths, injuries and property damage from fires in Hamilton happenin the central lower city, a new report shows.

And officials say it's because there's simply a higher amount of careless smoking, unattended cooking and other common causes happening there.

A new annual report from Hamilton Fire Department shows that in 2016, firefighters answered 6.6 per cent more calls city-wide over the year before. It also found only 48 per cent of all Hamilton homes involved in a fire had smoke alarms.

But Wards 2, 3 and 4, from downtown to the east end, bore the brunt of the hardship. Nine of the city's 11 fire deaths happened there, as did 32 of 37 fire-related injuries.

That area also saw more structure fires in general. There were 55 structure fires in Ward 3, for example, compared to six in Ward 9 in upper Stoney Creek, or 16 in Ward 1 in the west end.

Ward 3 in particular also suffered the highest dollar losses, with $2,618,400 in damage compared to $95,000 in Ward 9.

As for why, there's no easy answer. Most fires are caused by unattended cooking and careless smoking, said Chief David Cunliffe. So those activities must be happening there.

"Given the fact that fires are preventable and it's behaviour based, that's why it's happening," Cunliffe said.

Cunliffe wouldn't go so far as to say more of those activities happen in those areas. Those areas tend to have lower income neighbourhoods, but he wouldn't draw that parallel either.

Fires can and do happen everywhere, he said, and a few drastic incidents can skew the numbers. In other years, Ward 1 numbers have been higher.

The numbers concern Matthew Green, Ward 3 councillor. He ties it to the area's proliferation of unsafe rental units. He also says it's a reason the city needs a bylaw regulating rental housing although not everyone agrees with that concept.

A fatal fire last yearat 191 Grenfell Ave. in Ward 4, for example, happened at a house not regulated or zoned as a rooming house.

"I would suggest that precarious housing, coupled with inadequate fire code (compliance), have resulted in these tragedies," Green said. "More needs to be done to regulate this industry."

Landlords turn the area's older Victorian housing into two, three and four apartments, he said. And people, lacking affordable places to live, are renting them.

Unless someone complains, he said, the city has no way of knowing these places fall short of fire code standards until tragedy strikes.

"We don't have the jurisdiction to just walk into people's houses to ensure there are working fire alarms and egresses."

When it comes to working fire alarms, the report shows the whole city has work to do.

Less than half of homes involved in fires had smoke detectors that meet provincial standards of one on each level and one outside each sleeping area, the report shows. Sixty-four per cent of fatal fires happened in homes with no working smoke alarms at all.

That's "concerning," Cunliffe said, given that often determines whether people live or die.

That was the case in two fires that killed a combined six people in Hamilton last year. With the fire on Grenfell, for example, officials found four smoke alarms in the house, but three didn't have batteries.

Top causes of residential fires in Hamilton

• Careless smoking 20 per cent.
• Unattended cooking 16.
• Electrical 12.
• Arson 9.
• Combustibles in contact with heat 8.

samantha.craggs@cbc.ca | @SamCraggsCBC