Update by edhat staff
Santa Barbara County firefighters extinguished a 1/4 acre brush fire off Highway 101 in Goleta next to a homeless camp on Sunday evening.
At 9:43 p.m. crews responded to the southbound Los Carneros offramp area and discovered a growing fire near a homeless encampment. Crews quickly knocked it down and remained on the scene to mop up for several hours, said Captain Daniel Bertucelli.
There were no injuries and no structures threatened.
The official cause of the fire is under investigation by law enforcement.
Photo: SBCFD
Reported by ScannerAndrew
Santa Barbara County firefighters are responding to a vegetation fire on the 101 SB Los Carneros onramp. Tree on fire.
Can they not arrest the fire starters for arson? I knew a guy who accidentally set his own home on fire and he was charged with arson. We can’t just let this keep happening. (I bet the fire fighters are having even more fits about this than we are.)
@ A- The reason the guy who started a fire in his home was CHARGED is that he has the mean$ to pay the system… Meaning we have “selective enforcement” for crimes… If a vagrant pees in public, the authorities look the other way- If you do it and you don’t appear like a vagrant, you will be cited… If I pulled up to East Beach with my fam this weekend and set up my nice REI tent, table, outdoor cooking equipment, the Park Rangers and Police would cite me and immediately escourt me OFF the beach for illegal camping…. Vagrants get free reign. Selective Enforcement .
I’d never think that Pitmix – and I don’t think most of us would. You assume they’re thinking logically and planning ahead, but to me that seems absurd.
bums control goleta
You’d think the homeless would be against these fires as much as anyone. Probably destroys their encampment, draws unwanted attention, etc. Is it that hard to keep a warming fire from lighting up the nearby vegetation? Or is expecting rational behavior too much to ask for people that have dropped out of society?
A lot of these folks aren’t thinking rationally, whether due to mental illness or being high as a kite.
I’ve lost track of how many bum-fires we’ve had along 101 the past year.
It’s kind of ironic, but the addicts living along the freeway corridor are the only ones who are doing anything to abate the hazardous overgrown vegetation. Think about it, they just cleared a 1/4 acre firebreak without hurting anyone or causing any damage. It’s too bad we couldn’t hire professionals to prune the trees and clear the brush, or even have the firefighters clear the land with controlled burns. For some reason we have decided to rely on drug addicts to burn out the overgrowth for us instead of adopting a more reasonable approach to maintaining our public spaces.