The Austin Fire Department is seeing more vacant building fires and more unhoused people in Austin.
said it's dealing with more fires at vacant structures, mainly due to the unhoused. "For whatever reason, there are more vacant structures in the city now that we're seeing, whether that's an economic downturn or redevelopment," said Thayer Smith, assistant chief of operations for AFD. "We're certainly seeing an increase in fires in vacant structures," said Smith.
"There's certainly been a few of them that have been accidental, from electrical causes and that sort of thing, but for the majority of those, what we're seeing is they're being used by the homeless," he said,He said the fires happen when the unhoused are trying to cook, stay warm and smoke, among other things.
"First and foremost, we're trying to get these individuals the assistance they need, move them into appropriate housing," said Smith."So the Homeless Strategy Office and their outreach teams, they handle that aspect of it."AFD is now tracking any calls involving the unhoused and compiling a list of problematic locations and unsafe structures to hand over to the Code/Development Services Department.
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