Cleanup after Manwin Hotel fire temporarily suspended due to asbestos

The City of Winnipeg is halting work to clean up the Manwin Hotel site following a Wednesday fire, after officials determined there was asbestos in the rubble.

Property records show the presence of the dangerous construction material in the 144-year-old structure, Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service chief Christian Schmidt said in an update Thursday afternoon.

Contractors "are in the process now of securing the necessary approvals through Workplace Health and Safety to proceed" with work on the site, Schmidt said, and are also preparing a safety plan.

Asbestos was commonly used in insulation and other building products for decades in Canada, but was largely phased out around 1990 and has been fully banned in Canada since 2018.

During demolition, microscopic asbestos asbestos fibres can be released and trapped in people's lungs. It's known to cause several health conditions, including cancer.

"Obviously, asbestos is dangerous stuff," said Schmidt.

"These preparations have to occur not only to protect the health and safety of the contractors that are actually doing the remediation work, but also to protect the health and safety of residents in the immediate area."

Schmidt said the fire-paramedic service will do everything it can to ensure the remediation work is greenlit as soon as possible, but he couldn't say how long it will take for the province to approve it.

Firefighters were called to the hotel on Main Street around 3:45 a.m. Wednesday. The two-storey structure completely collapsed into rubble. The cause of the fire is still under investigation, officials said.

The city ordered residents to vacate the hotel last January on the basis of electrical, structural, fire-safety and other liability issues. It had been the subject of dozens of city inspections.

Corey Burgess, the acting administrative co-ordinator for bylaw enforcement with the city’s community services department, said officials had performed 53 on-site inspections since the building was ordered vacated.

Those inspections "covered things like graffiti on the outside of a vacant building, garbage on the property, fixing up the boards to meet the standards," Burgess said.

"In general, we have had co-operation from the owner.… We've had to attend on four different occasions to do remediation."

Kelly Happychuk, chief of enforcement and investigations with the city's property and development department, said it is exploring the option to acquire the property through a tax sale.