Homeless Camps in Three Isla Vista Parks Declared Fire Hazards
With Tent Cities on the Rise in College Town, Santa Barbara County Admins Hatch Plan for Temporary Tiny Homes
Santa Barbara County Fire Marshal Rob Hazard declared homeless encampments in three Isla Vista parks to be fire hazards and gave the Isla Vista Park and Recreation District (IVRPD), which requested the inspections, until November 20 to devise an appropriate response.
Two of the parks, Hazard determined, posed fire danger because the brush and vegetation nearby was dry and flammable. Those parks are the Camino Corto Open Space and the Del Sol Vernal Pool Reserve.
More problematic, Hazard found, was the proximity of tents and other accumulated stuff at Sueño Orchard Park, described as “densely cluttered.” There, Hazard found that the homeless encampments were erected directly next to a wooden fence from which there was no appreciable set-back from the next-door neighbor. That house, Hazard added, was wooden as well.