More than 1,100 fires in San Diego last year may have begun in homeless encampments, amounting to almost a fifth of all blazes in the city.
That total was an increase from 2023, according to five years’ worth of San Diego Fire-Rescue Department data obtained through a public records request.
While the numbers illustrate the danger facing people both housed and unhoused, they represent only a fraction of all incidents the agency responded to.
“This risk is not only to the surrounding communities, and the people who live near these encampments, but the entire county,” San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond said during a recent public hearing.
Encampment fires have been under the spotlight in recent weeks as a lack of rain, low humidity and high winds helped fan flames up and down Southern California. Sheriff’s deputies announced earlier this year that they had made several arrests for “criminal activity” in unincorporated El Cajon after a blaze broke out at a camp, and firefighters in the city of San Diego are now spraying a new, citrus-based retardant on sites where people often set up tents.
The Board of Supervisors, meanwhile, voted in February to explore immediately clearing sites on days when the threat of wildfire is especially high, and county officials plan to discuss a more sweeping camping ban on Tuesday. Advocates for homeless people in turn have argued that punitive measures may only make it harder to find, and therefore help, those sleeping outside.
Data from the city of San Diego helps clarify the scope of the problem.
The fire department responded to more than 29,600 blazes of all kinds during the past five years, records show. Of those, about 5,000 “likely” began in encampments, which is about 17% of the total.
The department classifies fires as “likely” originating in or near tent camps based on what 911 callers report and firefighters observe, and officials caution that the designation does not mean that every blaze by an encampment was started by a homeless person. Plus, a fire’s destructive nature can mean that the cause remains unknown even after an investigation.
Both the number of possible encampment fires and their share of the total have risen unevenly. In 2020, the department saw fewer than 700 of those blazes. Two years later, there were 1,220.
That remains the high-water mark for the past five years. In 2023, San Diego passed a camping ban that boosted penalties for sleeping outside, and while many homeless people moved to the riverbed in the wake of that ordinance, having a larger population sleep in heavy foliage didn’t trigger a corresponding surge in out-of-control camp fires, at least within the city.
Likely encampment blazes burned more than 330 acres over the past five years, according to the data. That led to approximately $1.7 million in property damage. The records do not note any deaths or injuries, although it’s possible wounds were only reported to other organizations, like hospitals.
San Diego residents have described in interviews seeing and hearing homeless people being hurt from fires.
Since 2020, the 100 blazes in the city that led to the most property damage, and in some cases caused injuries and deaths, were not tied to homelessness.
That’s little comfort for residents like Mark Polinsky, 72, who in January almost lost his condo near Fashion Valley to a possible encampment fire.
Polinsky was getting ready to leave for a doctor’s appointment when he saw a plume of smoke rising from a nearby hillside, he said in an interview. Flames spread within minutes. He and others fled.
When Polinsky was allowed to return hours later, much of the vegetation around his patio had been charred, according to photos he took of the scene. He said other units in the complex suffered serious damage. More than a dozen acres burned.
Polinsky wants the city to add shelter beds — San Diego has nowhere near enough spots for everybody asking — but also hopes officials boost encampment sweeps. “My worst nightmare came true,” he said. “This changed something within me.”