‘Very unfortunate’: Habitat for Humanity’s Archibald store closed after fire

A warehouse fire has impacted the local offices of Habitat for Humanity, causing substantial damage.

Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore building is closed indefinitely after a fire broke out Thursday morning.

Habitat for Humanity Manitoba CEO Jamie Hall said the organization learned early in the morning that a fire started at the Archibald Street location.

“From our security cameras, we saw that someone broke into our compound and set a fire next to our overhead door, which then spread into the warehouse area, so very unfortunate and disruptive to our organization to have something like this happen,” said Hall.

The city said fire crews were called to the area at around 5:45 a.m. and found smoke and flames coming from inside. Firefighters were able to get the fire under control by 6:22 a.m.

The city said no damage estimates are available at this time, but Hall expects a lot of what was inside to be a loss.

“In our warehouse, where we accept our donations, everything that we had in there because the sprinklers went off—I’m kind of expecting that a lot of that will be written off. We won’t be able to salvage anything in there.”

He noted the office spaces were also damaged by smoke, and they are waiting to see if a temporary space will be needed or if staff can work from home in the short term.

In the meantime, Hall said the Inkster store will take in all donations, as well as organize any pickups. He encourages people to still visit that location until Archibald is back up and running.

“This isn’t going to change the fact that we’re serving low-income families,” said Hall. “I know the spirit of Winnipeg. I know the donors and the volunteers and the supporters that we have, that they have our back and they’ll be here for us, and we’ll do the good work we do.”

Winnipeg police said this incident is currently under investigation.