Fire blows up propane tank near Santa Rosa homeless encampment

Tony Salinas was getting ready for bed about 10 p.m. Monday when he heard the explosion.

The sound and blast wave were so close to the Brittain Lane home he shares with his wife, Pat Parks, that he thought somebody from the nearby Joe Rodota Trail had thrown something at the house.

Then he heard two more bangs, and saw the flames dancing above the fence line between his property and the trail.

It was the second such blaze — at nearly the same location — in as many months, so Salinas and Parks went to work, pulling their garden hose and fighting the fire until Santa Rosa Fire Department crews could arrive to extinguish it, leaving a 150-square-foot burn scar, including a propane tank and the charred remains of a single homeless encampment.

Tuesday, when many residents were packing grocery store parking lots preparing for a New Year's celebration, Salinas was working to repair an irrigation hose a trail resident had damaged during the fire fight.

Since they moved into the house that abuts the trail, Parks and Salinas said they've never seen the growing encampment, which now totals at least 210 people, swell so much. They're worried about their safety. Salinas, standing on the bed of his pickup, pointed to how close the fire got to their fence.

'It's getting bad,' Salinas said.

The explosion and fire amid the Joe Rodota Trail encampment, the largest such collection of dwellings in Santa Rosa's history, has rattled wary west Santa Rosa residents living near the trail and is the latest example of the danger that the camp's fires, used to stay warm and cook food during the winter, can present to residents and neighbors alike.

Shane Reynolds has lived on the Joe Rodota Trail for about four months, and has struggled with homelessness for at least 1½ years, after moving to the North Bay from Pennsylvania.

Reynolds said he mostly uses a portable space heater, powered by butane, to keep warm. In December, temperatures have plunged below 40 degrees nearly a dozen times, including an overnight low of 29 degrees Friday, according to the National Weather Service. Just a couple of nights ago, Reynolds had a fire going to warm water for a sponge bath. He hadn't heard about the big Monday night fire.

Some people avoid fires because they often prompt a visit from the Fire Department, Reynolds said.

In December, about 25 calls for service including reports of fires, smoke investigations and medical aid emanated from the stretch of the Joe Rodota Trail where illegal camping is concentrated, including at least once a day for the past week, according to Assistant Fire Marshal Paul Lowenthal.

As part of the city's homeless outreach efforts, the Fire Department assesses encampments across the city to evaluate fire risk, accessibility and water supplies in case a fire or other incident breaks out, Lowenthal said.

But Reynolds said all firefighters typically do is tell the residents to put the fires out.

'As soon as they turn around, we're gonna light it again,' Reynolds said. 'You're gonna do whatever you gotta do to survive. We're in survival mode out here.'

Big fires, like the one that happened Monday, are pretty rare, Reynolds said. It's a point echoed by another trail resident, who identified himself as Snoop.

He hadn't heard about the fire, but he tries to maintain safety with fires. He doesn't keep them stoked overnight. Instead, Snoop said with a laugh, he piles on the blankets.

After multiple 911 callers reported an explosion and flames, Santa Rosa firefighters showed up and knocked down the blaze, said Battalion Chief Matt Dahl.

A photo posted to the Santa Rosa Fire Department's social media accounts shows a mass of charred debris including bike parts and a small propane tank that apparently blew up in the fire.

'They can make a hell of a bang when they go off,' Dahl said.

The occupant of the tent vanished after the fire started, he said. No injuries were reported.

Sonoma County Regional Parks nominally manages the trail — as the Fire Department noted in its social media post — but city police and fire generally handle calls for service stemming from the encampment, which is a county park within city limits.

Michael Spielman owns a few rental properties along Brittain Lane, including the one where his daughter lives. She called 911 to report a loud 'boom' and a wall of flames rising above the fence separating Spielman's homes from a stretch of the trail where hundreds of people have been camping illegally, some for about half of 2019.

The worrisome blaze didn't cause any injuries, but it was the second fire in two months along the fence that caught Spielman's attention. With local officials weeks and months away from implementing some $12 million in potential solutions to the trail, Spielman is planning an interim step: furnishing a garden hose connected to well water to each of his residents so they can stave off fires until the professionals arrive.

'We've become our own little fire department,' he said. 'I don't know what else to do.'

Jon George, who rents a home on Brittain Lane, cried Tuesday morning when his friends came over to surprise him.

George, a drug and alcohol counselor who quit his part-time security job working nights downtown after getting calls from his wife about homeless people hanging out around their house, walked out of his house to find his friends had bought $1,000 worth of supplies.

By nightfall, they were putting the finishing touches on a newly installed fence to help give George, his wife, Tara George, and their three kids some peace of mind, at least until their lease is up next August, he said.

'I'm going to have to move because of this, because nothing's gonna happen by then,' said George, who has lived at the same house for six years.

The county recently outlined on its website a series of steps it had taken and planned efforts for addressing what it termed a 'homeless emergency.' County staff say they will deploy 'a comprehensive plan for outreach, engagement and housing placement' for Joe Rodota Trail campers, only half of whom have been assessed for housing placement to date.

The plan also includes a meeting from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday at the Santa Rosa Veterans Memorial Building to discuss details of a sanctioned indoor-outdoor shelter, pest control services and thrice-weekly trash pickup starting next week, and new nightly security patrols to protect campers. Its release follows months in which city and county governments displayed little tangible action related to the encampment.

The Santa Rosa City Council is set to hear a staff report on its existing safe camping and parking program at its Jan. 28 meeting, according to city documents.

You can reach Staff Writer Tyler Silvy at 707-526-8667 or tyler.silvy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @tylersilvy. Reach Staff Writer Will Schmitt at 707-521-5207 or will.schmitt@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @wsreports.