Nuisance building burns

Nov 3, 2026 | 11:02 AM

A nuisance building on Port Alberni’s Fourth Avenue burned down this morning.

The fire at the Wintergreen Apartments, more commonly known as ‘the ghetto’, was called in shortly before 8am.

Fire Departments took a defensive position, allowing the two-storey building to burn in a controlled manner.

Port Alberni Fire Chief Mike Owens says an excavator is being brought in to help extinguish the fire and bring the building down.

“At this point, we have called an excavator to come in to assist us with this,” he said. “We’ll continue to evaluate, but it’s looking at this point like we may need to use that piece of heavy machinery in order to get access to everywhere that the fire is.”

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The building was boarded up after a fire in May 2023 that claimed the life of one of its tenants, and had been declared a Nuisance Property by the city.

Owens said people had been entering the building through a back door, and firefighters did a cursory check to ensure no one was in the building this morning.

Due to the location of the fire in a densely populated area, the automatic mutual aid protocol was activated, bringing firefighting forces from Beaver Creek, Cherry Creek and Sproat Lake.

There was no power to the building, so the fire is considered suspicious, and the investigation was handed over to Port Alberni RCMP.

by David Wiwchar

Nuisance building burns

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