Number of damaging fires in Los Angeles homeless camps grows
FILE - In this Dec. 14, 2017, file photo, Los Angeles Fire Department Arson Counter-Terrorism investigators check a burned-out homeless camp after a brush fire erupted in the hills in Elysian Park near downtown Los Angeles. Authorities say fires linked to homeless tents and camps are raising concern in Los Angeles, where they have claimed seven lives and caused tens of millions of dollars in damage to nearby businesses. The Los Angeles Times says the Fire Department handled 24 such fires a day in the first quarter of this year. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)
Number of damaging fires in Los Angeles homeless camps on the rise
By AP Author article
LOS ANGELES - Fires linked to homeless tents and camps are raising concerns in Los Angeles, where flames claimed seven lives last year and caused tens of millions of dollars in damage to nearby businesses, according to a newspaper report.
In the three years since the city’s Fire Department began classifying them, the number of blazes related to homelessness has nearly tripled, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday. In the first quarter of 2021, they occurred at a rate of 24 a day, making up 54% of all fires the department responded to.
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The fire began at 3 a.m., quickly destroying the clapboard bungalow two blocks from Venice Beach. The tenant was away for the night, but her dog, Togo, succumbed after his howls of panic and pain left helpless neighbors with a memory they can’t forget.
While arson investigators have yet to determine a cause in the April 20 blaze, traumatized neighbors quickly linked it to a rash of fires in Venice’s growing homeless camps.
“We may never know for sure what happened,” next-door neighbor Francesca Padilla wrote in an impassioned email to dozens of city officials. “What we know for sure is that around my home and the school across the street from it there are people cooking on sidewalks and RV kitchenettes, burning fires to keep warm, using generators for electricity, living out of their cars, smoking and using drugs in makeshift shacks and tents.”