Streets have reopened after brush fires along a rail line near Winnipeg's Charleswood and Tuxedo neighbourhoods were put out Sunday evening.

Winnipeg police had closed Wilkes Avenue east of Fairmont Road and diverted traffic on Sterling Lyon Parkway at Shaftesbury Boulevard as crews battled the fire.

In a tweet, police also said Assiniboine forest has reopened to pedestrian traffic.

The fire, which started around 3 p.m. CT had threatened a retirement residence, but fire crews were able to keep the fire away from the Shaftesbury Park Retirement Residence.

However, its fence was damaged by the fire.

A city spokesperson said no building evacuations were ordered.

Gerry Letandre, a cyclist who had ridden his bike down from the western edge of the city, said he "could see smoke from the Perimeter Highway."

Crews were on scene at a brush fire on Wilkes Avenue on Sunday. (Travis Golby/CBC)

"[The fire] is almost all the way down Wilkes."

John Wheeler owns Hackers and Smackers Driving Range, which sits just north of the rail line at at the corner of Elmhurst Road and Wilkes Avenue.

Wheeler says as the flames started edging up to his driving range shortly after 3 p.m. He, along with his daughter and four customers who had been golfing at the range, used the range's irrigation system, a pump and hoses to start dousing the flames.

"We tried to put it out so it wouldn't go on any further, plus it was coming onto the property," he said. "I just didn't want it to burn our signs down."

Wheeler says it took the makeshift fire crew about an hour to put out the fire on his property.

A CBC videographer on scene said there are several smaller fires along the railway tracks beside Wilkes, including a large one near Fairmont Road. They said crews from eight fire trucks were on scene.