A fire that erupted Thursday in a squatters’ encampment along the Santa Ana River bottom in Riverside consumed a number of items associated with the habitation but didn’t injure anyone.
The blaze was reported shortly before 3 a.m. Thursday in a space abutting the river bottom fronting Rubidoux Boulevard, according to the Riverside Fire Department.
Battalion Chief Pat Hopkins said that three engine crews, numbering about a dozen personnel, were sent to the location and encountered flames raging in a roughly quarter-acre space.
Hopkins said that it was an obvious transient encampment, and firefighters immediately deployed around it to prevent the conflagration from spreading into surrounding thick brush.
After establishing hose lays, “crews engaged in fire suppression,” the fire department spokesman said.
“The fire involved a large … encampment, which required extensive work to cool and overhaul,” he said.
The blaze was completely contained and knocked down by 4 a.m.
There was no immediate word on what might have triggered it.
Despite Riverside County Flood Control & Water Conservation District, as well as municipal, regulations prohibiting homeless camps throughout the river bottom, they persist.
Warming, debris and cooking fires are commonplace year-round.