Fire under St. Francis Drive sends two to hospital
Jan. 21—A blaze that ignited Thursday morning at a homeless encampment under St. Francis Drive sent two people to a local hospital with injuries and shut down the roadway's southbound lanes as firefighters worked to extinguish the flames.
City spokesman Dave Herndon said the fire ignited around 8 a.m. beneath an overpass near the intersection of St. Francis Drive and Siringo Road.
Crews responding to a report of the fire initially believed it was a brushfire, Fire Chief Brian Moya said, but they discovered people had been living at the site and two were injured. He did not know the severity of their injuries, he said.
Moya said the fire had been "knocked down" by 8:21 a.m. and responders conducted a search to make sure there were no other victims.
By 9 a.m., fire crews began leaving the area, and Santa Fe police public safety aides were reopening lanes to traffic.
The fire charred and blackened a large section of the overpass, just a few feet from a tunnel under
St. Francis that connects cyclists and pedestrians to the Santa Fe Rail Trail.
The cause of fire was still unknown Thursday afternoon, Moya said, adding more information on the fire's cause and damage would be released when the investigation is complete, likely within the next
10 days.
He did not know how many people might have been living in the camp, he said.
Kyra Ochoa, director of the city's Community Health and Safety Department, said the city was aware of the homeless camp.
"The people who had been in that encampment had been receiving services from our Mobile Integrated Health Office and Alternative Response Unit," she said. "They are connected to case managers and services, and they direct what they want."
The city also has a winter initiative, Code Blue, aimed at helping people in the homeless community when temperatures drop below 15 degrees.
"We have teams go out to make sure ... people have what they need, if they want to stay in that place," Ochoa said, citing sleeping bags, food and transport to shelters as aid offered through the program.
Teams also "make sure they're medically stable and don't need to be transported to hospital," she said. "During normal times, since our team was already in connected to some of the folks in this encampment, they would've been receiving those things as well."
While city fire restrictions do not allow open burning, she said, people are able to use propane stoves or burners outside.
"Open fires are not allowed in encampments, even where encampments are allowed," Ochoa said. "That is something that we'll look at."
