A Fire Oregon Refuses to See.

A Spokane man is being held on $1 million bond, accused of deliberately starting the Old Trails Fire near Airway Heights.

Investigators allege that a witness saw Aaron F. Farinacci kneeling near the fire’s point of origin on August 1. Deputies reportedly found waterproof matches and a butane lighter in his possession. He has not been convicted, but the fire became part of a disaster that destroyed hundreds of structures and forced tens of thousands of people to evacuate.

California’s Park Fire, Line Fire and Dolan Fire are proven examples. People were convicted of intentionally starting fires that collectively burned hundreds of thousands of acres, destroyed homes and endangered entire communities.

Arson is real. But it is only one part of a much larger human-caused fire problem.

The National Interagency Fire Center estimates that people cause approximately 85% of America’s wildfires. Although most are not arson, begin with abandoned campfires, debris burning, vehicles, equipment, fireworks, electrical infrastructure or simple recklessness. The cause or intent matters little to the family watching flames approach its home, or the people breathing the air downwind.

The Fire Risk Hiding in Plain Sight

Kevin Dahlgren publishes Truth on the Streets, where he describes himself as an independent journalist, homelessness consultant and longtime social-services worker. His reporting is not conducted from behind a desk or through another government study. He walks through camps, interviews the people living in them and documents what is actually happening.

Dahlgren recently offered a blunt warning:

“The forest fire started at a squatter camp. Fires again are popping up all over Oregon and many are man-made. This is why we need sanctioned camping.”

That is the issue government officials and homelessness advocates too often refuse to address.

Homelessness itself does not cause fires. Unmanaged camps containing open flames, propane cylinders, improvised wiring, batteries, fuel cans, generators, abandoned vehicles and piles of combustible garbage absolutely create a fire hazard.

Dahlgren has documented tents exploding from stored propane, burn areas beneath Portland bridges and people living inside structures with inadequate exits. In one reported incident beneath the Steel Bridge, a tent ignited and its propane cylinders exploded, injuring a nearby homeless man. He also described a separate fire inside the bridge structure that trapped occupants and resulted in a death.

These fires endanger not only the homeless, they endanger firefighters, nearby residents, businesses, forests and everyone downwind.

Portland’s Numbers Are Not a Coincidence

Portland Fire & Rescue classified 2,048 fires in 2021 as “homeless-related”—nearly 47% of all fires reported in the city. In 2022, the bureau recorded another 1,959, representing 41% of Portland’s fires.

In September 2024, a fire that began at a Southeast Portland homeless encampment spread into a three-story apartment building. Residents were displaced and portions of the building were damaged. It was not a hypothetical risk. It was an encampment fire becoming someone else’s housing crisis. And the crisis continues.

Portland recognized the danger in 2021 when the City Council approved protocols barring homeless camps from heavily forested city property during dry conditions, because of wildfire risk. The question is since Government therefore understands the problem, are they doing anything about it, or enforcing the ban consistently?

The Bend Fire That Proved the Point

Central Oregon provides an even clearer example.

On August 2, 2024, an abandoned cooking fire at a homeless camp near Highway 97 ignited Bend’s Mile Marker 132 Fire. It burned approximately 78 acres, threatened hundreds of homes, interrupted electrical service and triggered evacuations before a major air and ground response stopped it.

That fire was not blamed on climate change, lightning or an evil timber company.

It began with an abandoned cooking fire at a camp.

During the opening weeks of that same year, Bend-area fire agencies reported 15 fires associated with homeless camps. One destroyed a motorhome. Others required emergency responses before they could spread into the surrounding dry landscape.

In 2025, the U.S. Forest Service removed approximately 150 people from a large encampment in the Deschutes National Forest so officials could conduct wildfire-mitigation work, remove hazardous materials and restore the forest.

A federal judge refused to stop the closure, writing that the public’s interest in preventing catastrophic wildfires and preserving the forest outweighed the campers’ interest in remaining on that particular land.

It was recognition that allowing hundreds of people to live among dry ponderosa pines with vehicles, heaters, generators and cooking fires is not a sustainable housing policy.

It is a countdown to a greater tragedy, but will they enforce the judge’s order?

Centennial Mills: Another Warning in the Smoke

Portland received another warning on August 2, when a four-alarm fire gutted the historic Centennial Mills warehouse.

The vacant, 116-year-old building had previously experienced smaller fires. It was structurally unsafe, its interior stairways had been removed and police had recently responded to squatting concerns at the property. When the major fire erupted, firefighters could not safely enter.

Nearly 100 firefighters were assigned. The building’s floors collapsed, Naito Parkway was closed, train service was disrupted and burning embers started spot fires in nearby trees and dry vegetation. While investigators have not yet announced the cause, authorities knew people had been getting onto the property. They knew smaller fires had occurred in the past. They also knew the building was too dangerous for firefighters to enter.

Where there is repeated trespassing, previous fires and an unsecured combustible structure, perhaps we should not act shocked when smoke eventually pours from every window.

Where there is smoke, there is usually a warning somebody ignored.

Sanctioned Camping Is Not Surrender

There are two equally dishonest approaches to homelessness.

One is pretending that every homeless person is a criminal who can simply be swept into the next jurisdiction.

The other is pretending that compassion requires allowing people to live wherever they choose, under any conditions, without rules or accountability.

Neither solves anything.

When permanent shelter or treatment is not immediately available, communities should direct the homeless to permitted campgrounds. Creating ad-hoc sanctioned camping on public land is not a permanent solution.

Banning such un-sanctioned camping is containment, accountability and harm reduction in the literal sense of preventing people from burning themselves—and the surrounding community—to the ground.

Compassion without standards is abandonment with a government grant.

What Would Smokey Bear Say?

Smokey Bear has spent more than 80 years telling Americans, Only you can prevent wildfires. He did not say only homeowners, hunters, loggers, tourists or Republicans must prevent them, because everyone is responsible for controlling fire.

An arsonist should go to prison. A recreational camper should extinguish his campfire. A utility should maintain its equipment. A property owner should create a defensible space around his structures.

Someone living in a tent or recreational vehicle on public land must also be held to basic fire-safety standards, and if they are not permitted to be there, remove them. PERIOD.

We can offer help to people who are homeless: shelter, treatment and a legitimate place to go. We must stop pretending that allowing uncontrolled camps in forests or parks, squatters in abandoned buildings, or tents on dry grass is acting in kindness.

The smoke has been rising for years, and the only question is whether Oregon will acknowledge the fire before another neighborhood is forced to run from it.

That’s my viewpoint. Share if you care.

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Sources Below

1. KPTV — Man arrested in connection with Spokane-area wildfire
2. KGW — Arrest made in connection with Spokane complex fires
3. National Interagency Fire Center — Wildfire prevention and human-caused fires
4. CBS Sacramento — Park Fire arson conviction
5. San Bernardino County District Attorney — Line Fire conviction and sentence
6. Monterey County District Attorney — Dolan Fire arson conviction
7. Truth on the Streets — About Kevin Dahlgren
8. Truth on the Streets — “Portland Is Burning”
9. Truth on the Streets — “Oregon Progressive Policies Just Went Up in Smoke”
10. OPB — Fires beginning at Portland homeless camps doubled in three years
11. Willamette Week — Homeless-related fires accounted for 41% of Portland fires in 2022
12. Street Roots — Portland Fire & Rescue homeless-related fire classifications
13. KGW — Encampment fire spreads to Southeast Portland apartment building
14. OPB — Portland bars camping in forested areas during wildfire season
15. KTVZ — Abandoned homeless-camp cooking fire caused Bend’s Mile Marker 132 Fire
16. KTVZ — Fifteen Bend-area homeless-camp fires reported in early 2024
17. Associated Press — Forest Service clears large Deschutes National Forest encampment
18. KGW — Centennial Mills destroyed by four-alarm fire
19. Portland Fire & Rescue — Official Centennial Mills fire report
20. KPTV — Centennial Mills fire and prior squatting concerns
21. Smokey Bear — History of the wildfire-prevention campaign