SANTA CRUZ — Within the wake of a small weekend fireplace, a person was discovered useless in a tent on the outskirts of the town’s largest homeless encampment, authorities say.
The person’s official reason for loss of life remained below investigation Tuesday, pending an post-mortem by the Santa Cruz County Coroner’s Workplace.
In response to Santa Cruz Hearth Chief Rob Oatey, there was no proof of foul play within the Saturday night time fireplace, although he stated he couldn't converse to the tent occupant’s reason for loss of life.
“At this level, it’s nonetheless below investigation however we’re leaning towards unintentional, human-caused. Probably both a candle and/or smoking materials, like a lighter or one thing like that,” Oatey stated. “That’s primarily based on witness stories. There have been two completely different individuals who stated they noticed a flickering contained in the tent, one thing small.”
Firefighters have been known as to a report of a fireplace at 8:52 p.m. Saturday, ultimately situated confined to a single 6-foot-by-6-foot tent throughout from the park’s youngsters’s playground, close to the Branciforte Creek pedestrian bridge. The location was other than the bigger San Lorenzo Park Benchlands homeless encampment, Oatey stated. The tent had not been arrange only a couple days earlier, when Oatey stated he personally went out to the encampment as a part of the Hearth Division’s fireplace schooling and outreach efforts.
As to stories of explosions on the scene, Oatey stated fireplace investigators situated a compressed fuel cylinder for bug spray and a small tenting stove-type gasoline container, both propane or butane, that had gone off when heated up.
“There was no different massive explosion, no native injury to the fence close by, the lights,” Oatey stated. “If there was a major explosion, you'd have seen collateral injury to property within the surrounding space and even some form of crater.”
Oatey stated he's conscious that persons are cooking, smoking and holding heat inside their tents, however stated his personnel continues to “religiously” urge camp occupants to keep away from open flames contained in the tents “as a result of they are going to catch fireplace moderately shortly.”
“And naturally, in case you’re sleeping, they don’t have smoke detectors, and that’s what retains individuals secure in houses,” Oatey stated.
Oatey stated his division arrange security guidelines — together with a requirement that the tents stay at the least 6 toes aside — when Santa Cruz metropolis officers first established the encampment for 122 tents in April 2021.
“We arrange requirements a very long time in the past and have been attempting to implement them, nevertheless it’s an uphill battle that we're shedding. We strive once more,” Oatey stated. “Sadly, it’s a revolving door of outreach, schooling, enforcement. However then, (fires) nonetheless hold occurring. Because of important shortages of staffing and workers time to dedicate to that, we educate and conduct outreach, however the enforcement piece is fairly tough.”