The burned tiny home in Mocassin Flats

By Tommy Osborne

Tiny homes

Moccasin Flats tiny home burns down, leaving resident devastated

Jan 25, 2024 | 4:37 PM

*Author’s note: CKPG will have an in depth piece on the City of Prince George’s reaction and point of view tomorrow*

PRINCE GEORGE – At around 5:00 a.m. this morning, longtime Mocassin Flats resident Cora woke up to find a small fire started in the corner of her tiny home. Believing the source to be a candle she thought she put out, Cora said the fire quickly spiralled out of control.

“It just went so quickly and it just started to go all over the place, and I had to get out and the fire was spreading and spreading. It was quite devastating,” she said.

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“It’s really devastating because it basically took everything I had and owned.”

In the early stages of the tiny homes project the City of Prince George issued a stop work notice due to safety concerns, and Mayor Simon Yu provided a statement, saying safety will always be his top priority. Yu said the City will take a look at this situation and hopefully speed up its transitional home program to get people in better, safe housing that’s built to national code and is fire proof.

As for the volunteers that built the home, co-lead of the project Philip Frederiksson is heartbroken, but also knew this was always a possibility. Knowing it was a possibility, why would the volunteers move ahead with a potentially dangerous project?

“The shelters are full. People need a place to go, whether it was a wood structure or a tent, bottom line is they all catch fire. The three approved products for this this encampment are cardboard, plastic and nylon, and those are far more dangerous, I think, than wood, because the damage that happens from those when they burn and melt and fall on somebody are awful, that causes a lot of damage. And we’ve seen that with some of the residents here over the last couple of years that have been in fires, in tents, and have burned 80% of their body because of it,” he answered.

Frederiksson has always maintained that this tiny home project is a temporary solution, as he says people need to be sheltered now, and hopefully a longterm solution can be worked out that will eventually make the tiny homes not needed.

“I think that’s something that we need to change in legislation, is we need to have adequate housing for people before they’re pushed into encampments. We need to find other solutions and there needs to be either utilities put in place down here so people can use safe sources of heat, or we need to find adequate housing for these people.”

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