A La Jolla brush fire last week that burned three acres and caused nearby residents to be evacuated started in a homeless encampment, according to an official with the San Diego Metro Arson Strike Team.
NBC-TV/7 attributed that information to MAST Capt. Pat Buckley, though no further details were provided. Representatives of MAST, a group of fire forensics and police investigators, did not immediately respond to the La Jolla Light’s request for more information.
The “Gilman fire,” aided by Santa Ana winds, was reported around 2:30 p.m. Jan. 23 near Gilman Drive and Via Alicante, drawing a response from about 175 firefighters, San Diego Fire-Rescue Department spokesman Jose Ysea said at the time.
Evacuation orders were soon issued for the area bordered by La Jolla Village Drive to the north, La Jolla Parkway to the south, Gilman Drive to the east and Torrey Pines Road to the west, including Torrey Pines Elementary School.
Additional evacuation warnings were issued between La Jolla Shores Drive and Torrey Pines Road and between La Jolla Natural Park and Hillside Drive.
A temporary evacuation location was set up near UC San Diego Medical Center.
Crews stopped the fire’s progress around 4 p.m., and the evacuation orders and warnings were lifted.
A fire the day before in Rancho Bernardo and another Jan. 21 in Mission Valley, both of which prompted evacuation orders, also reportedly started at homeless encampments.
But saying a fire started at or near a homeless camp doesn’t mean the cause of the fire was the encampment itself or that it was caused by a homeless person, San Diego Fire-Rescue spokeswoman Monica Muñoz told the Rancho Bernardo News-Journal.
“The second important point is that if a fire was caused by a cooking or warming fire in an encampment, it’s not necessarily criminal,” Muñoz said. “When the investigators don’t know [the exact cause] definitively, we don’t offer speculation.”
While there’s no definitive database on how many fires are started by people sleeping outside, the Fire-Rescue Department estimated that 25 this month had “likely” originated in an encampment, as of Jan. 27. That would be an improvement over January 2024, when there were 95.
— San Diego Union-Tribune staff writer Blake Nelson contributed to this report. ♦
