RIVERSIDE: Homeless Encampment Fire

Early Wednesday morning January 02, 2019 the City of Riverside Fire Department responded to a report of a vegetation fire behind a business. The fire was reported at 12:41am in a drainage area known as Hole Lake, behind Champion Framing in the 6800 block of Doolittle Avenue. The first arriving engine company located a fire in a homeless encampment with people using shovels and buckets of water in an attempt to extinguish the blaze. Firefighters were able to quickly knock the fire down and contain it to a small homeless encampment. No injuries were reported and the cause of the fire may have been the result of a warming fire as the temperature was in the low 40’s at the time of the fire.