Fire risk tied to homeless sites a continuing concern

A Santa Fe woman returning to her home in a downtown neighborhood April 1 heard several loud explosions.

It wasn’t an April Fool’s Day prank gone awry. A propane tank in a homeless encampment in the arroyo that runs alongside Rosario Cemetery had burst, starting a fire that quickly engulfed part of a wooden fence separating the arroyo from a line of homes in the Historic St. Catherine’s Neighborhood.

The woman called the Santa Fe Fire Department, which quickly arrived from Fire Station No. 1. Crews cut open a section of the fence so they could bring their equipment into the arroyo.

If not for the rapid response, neighborhood association President Daniel Gibson said, he’s afraid to think about what could have happened. “It could have had the potential to run along this entire fence,” Gibson said during a recent visit to the arroyo, where he pointed out the scorch marks still visible on the fence several months later.

City public safety officials say the incident is one of several fires linked to homeless Santa Feans. Though such a fire has yet to cause serious damage — or ignite a wildfire — the potential is cause for anxiety after a dry winter and lingering severe drought conditions.

“We do get a number of homeless encampment fires or fires that were suspected of being started by

the homeless,” said Scott Ouderkirk, the Santa Fe Fire Department’s assistant chief of operations.

Fires in arroyos or vacant lots are reported by people walking or driving by who see smoke, he said.

As of July 15, the department had responded to 31 blazes suspected to be started by the homeless since the start of 2025.

In July alone the department has responded to eight brush or grass fires, Ouderkirk said, noting the agency can’t confirm all of those were started by homeless people: “They could be kids playing with fireworks.”

Ouderkirk said the number of fires is relatively consistent year-round, with a slight uptick during the colder months because of warming fires.

“We do get a few more of those in wintertime, and we’ll have to put those out because it is illegal to burn in that fashion,” he said.

Jason Sharp, the city’s park ranger superintendent, said in a recent interview camping stoves handed out by outreach workers to people living on the streets turn into a fire hazard in the hands of people who lack familiarity with how they work.

“People bring those into their tents, and a lot of the times they’ll burn their stuff down,” he said.

Fire poses a danger to the people camping as well as surrounding property owners and the natural habitat, Sharp said, especially in areas with dense vegetation.

Along with the risk of drowning in an arroyo or the Santa Fe River when heavy rains bring a surge of flows, fire danger is a big reason rangers put so much effort into keeping people from camping along waterways, he said. “If a fire got out of control, it would just rip up and down the river.”

Gibson said a split-open propane tank and a crude cooking stove were found at the scene of the fire near Rosario Cemetery. He thinks someone was trying to connect a stove to the propane and a leak caused it to explode.

He reached out to the Santa Fe Constituent Services Department shortly afterward, requesting the city clean up the the remains of the fire, conduct more regular police patrols of the arroyo in the neighborhood and consider fencing off the arroyo at Paseo de Peralta, which he said he believes is the ultimate solution.

“You can climb a fence, but you can’t haul your cart and all your stuff over the fence,” he said.

Police have been present more often in the area since April, which he said has reduced the number of people congregating in the arroyo. The city has not taken action on his two other requests. He wasn’t sure whether the city, the cemetery or another landowner owns the arroyo, complicating the issue.

Gibson said he’s sympathetic to the plight of the homeless but noted people shouldn’t feel unsafe walking in the open spaces near their homes or fear their homes will be damaged.

“It’s a huge problem,” he said of homeless encampments. “I don’t envy our public officials in trying to solve this.”