Explosion and Fire Along Trial Last Night

Joe Robato Trail last night at The Occupation
Happy New Year!

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Fire blows up propane tank near Santa Rosa homeless encampment

TYLER SILVY AND WILL SCHMITT
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT December 31, 2019, 7:39PM

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 Road 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.

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