Under the watchful eye of dozens of RCMP and private security guards, Maple Ridge firefighters and city staff entered the Anita Place homeless camp to enforce a court order, which gives the city the right to address fire safety concerns.

They confiscated items including propane tanks, gas cans, generators and portable barbecues.

“They’re taking our heat away,” said camp resident Dwayne Martin, who thinks the latest move by the city is a veiled attempt to freeze people out. “We have no heat. We have no lights.”

In a news release, the city says it had to tell BC Hydro to cut off power to a portable building at the site after discovering the electrical service panel had been tampered with and left exposed to the elements. The city also discovered an 80-pound propane tank that had been rigged to refill smaller 20-pound tanks, which it called "an extreme fire hazard."

The city’s action comes less than two months after a woman was badly burned when her tent went up in flames in the early hours of Dec. 29, 2018.

At the time, the city said it was the sixth fire at the site since people began camping there nearly two years ago.

Martin claims to be one of the first people to move in and says he has no plans to leave.

"I'm building a cabin,” he said. “I've got probably 800 square feet."

Martin invited CTV News cameras in to see where he lives but city bylaw officers, backed by the RCMP, would not allow a reporter and videographer into the camp.

“They’re putting up this barricade and staffing it with officers from four or five detachments,” said Ivan Drury of the Alliance Against Displacement, which had several volunteers at the camp on St. Anne Avenue to observe and document the work being done by city staff.

"Opposing the efforts of the city to, we think, strangle the camp and suffocate it under the weight of police and bureaucracy that restricts people and stops them from being able to control their own living environment,” Drury said.

City bylaw officers forced campers to get registered and turned people away who were not on the list, including some people who claim to live at the camp.

A group of local residents opposed to the tent city were also on hand and some of them cheered each time more campers belongings were tossed into a dumpster.

Maple Ridge Mayor Mike Morden declined an interview request and the city would not provide anyone else to answer questions.

In its news release, the city says it will work with BC Housing on solutions to issues at the site.