A brush fire that erupted Friday in the Santa Ana River bottom in Jurupa Valley burned less than an acre before crews knocked it down.
The non-injury blaze was reported just before 4 p.m. in the area of Clay Street and General Road, about a half-mile east of the Western Riverside County Animal Shelter, according to the Riverside County Fire Department.
The agency said multiple engine crews from the county and Riverside Fire Department were sent to the location and encountered flames moving at a slow rate through thick vegetation, posing no threat to the shelter.
Firefighters quickly deployed hose lines and stopped the fire’s forward rate of spread at 4:35 p.m., according to officials at the scene. A short time later, the brusher was fully contained.
There was no immediate word on what might have triggered the blaze, which is the second in the river bottom this week. The area is dotted with homeless encampments, despite a Riverside city ordinance, as well as county Flood Control & Water Conservation District regulations, prohibiting transient camps.
Cooking, warming and debris fires are constant along the riverbed on a year-round basis.