A fire burned down a small community of tents just off Higgins and Main this morning.

A community of people who are without a home had set up a temporary shelter between the Sun Wah Supermarket and BridgmanCollaborative Architecture watched today as their tents and belongings burned down this morning.

"There's some community there," said Joel Cormie from Lighthouse Mission. It was too early to tell, but Cormie said it's likely some of their patrons were living in that community.

"They would have lost a lot of things," Cormie figured. The scene was littered with burnt shopping carts and other items that these people would have carried around with them. 

The firefighters on scene said the cause of the fire was under investigation. Cormie doesn't know either but thought it could be because of them running a hot plate off a car battery. "You got to be creative in order to be living in a tent that way."

Often, these people are just looking for community. "There's community. People's friends are down here," Cormie said. He said that is why people won't leave the downtown area, choosing to sleep in a tent instead of using housing programs like Manitoba Housing.

"Churches [can] welcome people into their church," Cormie said. Giving people that sense of community can encourage them to leave the downtown area and take advantage of housing programs.

UPDATE 4:40 p.m.

The WFPS responded to a call at 9:39 a.m. for a fire at the rear of a shopping mall in the 300 block of King Street. Heavy smoke and flames were coming from around a disposal bin. The fire was extinguished quickly and the shopping mall was evacuated.

The rear wall of the grocery store was damaged, along with a nearby utility pole and portable toilet.

No injuries were reported and the cause of the fire is under investigation.