Officials say fires are breaking out in homeless encampments around Seattle, and they are becoming more numerous. FOX13
New numbers from the Seattle Fire Department show these encampment fires continue to grow. On Thursday, another fire broke out at an encampment across the street from City Hall.The Fire Department says crews have been busier than ever. Their data shows that, in 2020, they put out 854 encampment fires, then 1,446 in 2021.FOX 13 News spoke with the neighbors of a man whose tent went up in flames Thursday, to figure out what went wrong.
"If I had to guess, nodding off when you have hand sanitizer burning," explained Michael, an encampment resident. "Then I heard the cop saying ‘Get out, get out, man, your tent is going to burn down,’" another resident told FOX 13, who wished to remain anonymous. "I didn’t want to leave my tent because I had all my stuff in my tent… It’s all I have, so I kind of was, um, I ended up getting out because of the heat."
We reached out to the Mayor’s Office, who said that campsite is still on the calendar – but things came to a pause due to the freezing overnight temperatures. "Nobody chooses this situation," the anonymous resident said. "I’m just trying to make it day by day."There is no word when the sweeps will start again.