Updated, May 8
Fire officials in Chilmark are reporting that an unhoused person accidentally started a small brush fire at their campsite in April that quickly got out of control, engulfing his site and personal items in flames, but it was extinguished before spreading further.
Fire Chief Jeremy Bradshaw told the Chilmark select board at a meeting on Tuesday that on April 20th, the Chilmark department was called to a “fast-moving brush and forest fire” off of Tabor House Road, and found a man believed to be in his 30s at the campsite with a small trailer.
Bradshaw said it appeared the man had been camping there for a few years, and the chief believes that he called first responders to put the fire out before it spread to the surrounding area. According to a report from that day, high winds intensified the flames. The closest building was the Highway Department, which the fire did not reach.
“He had a small, little RV that he must’ve pulled in a couple years ago,” Bradshaw said. “The fire burnt everything down, so I’m sure he had to relocate.”
The report from April stated the campsite and RV camper were “engulfed in flames” by the time help arrived, with the unhoused man attempting to extinguish it on site. The Chilmark fire department sounded the alarm for mutual aid, with Aquinnah and West Tisbury’s departments arriving shortly after.
While Bradshaw said this is the first burn in Chilmark from an unhoused campsite, fires of this kind have been a concern of municipal officials across the Island. Last summer, the Department of Conservation and Recreation cleared an unhoused campsite and cited their fear of a fire in the forest, much to the critique of the public.
Bradshaw said he was approached the following day by the unhoused man’s employer. The man who was camping reportedly has a job within Chilmark.
According to Bradshaw, the fire department is wary of future incidents of this nature, but he believes housing shortages to be the root cause of the issue.
“It is a huge concern of the Island,” Bradshaw told The Times. “Housing is such a huge problem [here].”
The “root cause” of the issue was the illegal and intentional campfire started in an illegal campsite by a squatter. The squatter did not intend for the fire to spread beyond where he wanted it, but had he not knowingly broken the law to begin, there would be no “issue”. Are there charges filed against this squatter? Why did this article fail to identify the scofflaw?
Are homeless/unhoused people exempt from responsibility when they entitle themselves to break laws that are in place to protect the greater community? Is it heartless to care about the greater good and well being of a law-abiding community? There are costs to a community to fight fires and to call in other towns. I’m glad no one was hurt. I’m sorry the person is unhoused, but entitling oneself to do what is a reckless endangerment to a greater community is not okay.