All that remains of the homeless encampment that sparked last week’s Skirball Fire in Bel-Air is a stove, a pot, a grater, and the remains of a boombox.
Its residents or transient users had shrouded the camp in brush and leaves, making it “a little obscure,” one homelessness official told the L.A. Times.
The presumed cooking fire that sparked the blaze originated at a camp hidden a few hundred feet away from passing motorists on the 405 freeway. And it is prompting soul-searching once more over the city’s homelessness crisis.
The fire began before dawn on Wednesday (Dec. 6), and burned for a week. It destroyed six homes in Bel-Air and forced the evacuation of hundreds of people.
Schools and colleges including UCLA had to close for a day, and although the fire was very small compared to the monstrous Thomas Fire up north, the Skirball blaze made for some very cinematic visuals on the day it hit.