I’ve written about this topic before but it’s not one that has gotten much national attention. Earlier this year, KOMO News reported that Seattle firefighters had responded to 450 homeless camp fires in a little over three months. That made for an average of five such fires a day.

This problem isn’t limited to Seattle. Today Willamette Week reports that roughly half of all fires in Portland begin in or near one of the city’s estimated 700 homeless camps. The captain of one Portland firehouse says the pace, now about six such fires a day, is not sustainable.

Nearly half of all fires in Portland now start in or near houseless camps—at least 2,048 last year, according to Portland Fire & Rescue data. It’s a remarkable number, given how five years ago, fires among unhoused Portlanders were hardly a blip.

Today, there are an average of six a day…

The blazes have killed at least nine unhoused people in the past four years, one-third of Portland’s fire fatalities. Homeless people have been injured and lost possessions and loved ones.

“We don’t mind going on dangerous calls—we’re here to do that,” says Capt. Mike McGowan of North Portland’s Station 8 firehouse, which stands among the city’s worst-hit areas. “But five or six houseless fires in the middle of the night is too much. It’s fatiguing to go on the same type of call over and over, with no end in sight. It’s not sustainable.”

Some of the fires are accidental, caused by homeless people using propane to cook food or to warm their tents. People who smoke drugs and then nod may not notice when their heater starts a fire. And then some of the fires are intentional, either to burn garbage or just because someone is mentally ill. Firefighters showing up at these fires have no idea what they are walking into.

Firefighters say they’ve stumbled onto booby traps, territorial people suffering from mental illness, and a semi-automatic rifle partly melted by a blaze.

“I never thought we’d need ballistics vests, but we do now,” McGowan says.

But it’s not just firefighters and the homeless themselves that are endangered. These homeless camps are often set up near homes or businesses who are in danger of being engulfed if a fire isn’t stopped quickly enough.

In June, the workers at Cutting Edge Custom Cabinets in the Piedmont neighborhood rushed to extinguish a burning tire. It had been set alight by a mentally ill woman living at a nearby camp, employees say…

In recent months, the woman has allegedly swiped several tires from the used auto parts shop that shares a lot with Cutting Edge. She lights them on fire and inhales the fumes to get high—then sometimes leaves them smoldering, according to fire officials and workers…

“It’s scary. Especially in a wood shop, everything would go up so fast,” says sales assistant Justin Saephan, 30, gesturing toward shelves of panels. “There’s nothing you can do other than get angry.”

Another Portland station reported on a similar fire just yesterday. This one left some scorching damage on the outside of the business but fortunately it was stopped before the entire building went up.

Brent Zaemann, Vice President at Sealant Specialists on Southeast Division Place…says he’s seen it all, from broken windows and graffiti to flames racing up the side of the building.

Zaemann showed us how firefighters were able to get inside last month and stop the flames from spreading to highly combustible materials stacked on his shelves.

“It made me really scared,” said Zaemann. “Look at this building. It’s got wooden rafters; it could go up like a torch.”

The scorch marks are still visible on the outside wall because, despite the fire, the city hasn’t removed the tent camp outside his building. That’s not his only concern. Someone has also burrowed under his building from the outside:

Zaemann showed KATU the hole leading into a crawl space under the building, telling us his employees and customers had reported people coming out and harassing them. While reporting on the story, a cyclist stopped to tell us they see people crawling in and out of the hole every morning.

There are human beings literally living like rats in Portland and only after KATU published its story about it did someone from the city show up to offer the owner help. Zaemann says if things don’t change he may need to move his business outside of the city limits.

Last month, Mayor Ted Wheeler proposed a five point plan to deal more aggressively with homelessness. That plan, in the form of five resolutions, goes before the City Council today. One part of the plan is a citywide ban on unsanctioned tent camps causing all of these fires. The resolution estimates there are currently 700 such camps in the city. The plan is to start with three sanctioned, managed campsites each with capacity for between 150 and 500 people.

As you might expect, this plan is already being compared to internment camps by homeless activists:

Several people told the mayor that smaller camps of perhaps 30 or 40 people each might be better than packing hundreds of people on one site. They said with more people come greater security concerns. The plan Wheeler and Ryan have proposed would create three camps that could range from 150 to 500 people.

Becky Lange said large camps run by the government is a terrible idea.

“I mean three camps of 500 people! An internment camp is a group where you put people who have not committed a crime, but they’re a member of a group that’s found distasteful or unwanted,” Lange said. “Sounds like what you’re doing here.”

Finally, you may recall that back in September Portland was sued under the ADA by a group of disabled people who argued (quite reasonably I think) that sidewalks full of tents created a serious problem for them getting around. It’s not that hard to step over or around homeless people when you’re relatively fit. It’s quite a bit harder when you’re confined to a wheelchair.

This week we learned that lawsuit will go to mediation. It’s not clear (to me at least) if the lawsuit prompted the mayor’s new resolutions on unregulated tent camps. Here’s a local news report on Mayor Wheeler’s plan.