AUSTIN, Texas — The Austin Fire Department (AFD) said it's dealing with more fires at vacant structures, mainly due to the unhoused population.
If you're looking for it, you'll see vacant buildings all around Austin.
"For whatever reason, there are more vacant structures in the city now that we're seeing, whether that's an economic downturn or redevelopment," Thayer Smith, assistant chief of operations for AFD, said.
Smith said the department has ramped up efforts to keep people out of those empty buildings.
"We're certainly seeing an increase in fires in vacant structures," Smith said.
Smith said that over the past 12 months, AFD has had to put out at least 57 fires at vacant buildings. Most of the time, the fires involve the unhoused.
"There's certainly been a few of them that have been accidental, from electrical causes and that sort of thing. But for the majority of those, what we're seeing is they're being used by the homeless," he said,
He said the fires happen when people experiencing homelessness are trying to cook, stay warm and smoke, among other things.
Smith said a vacant structure on 1800 Guadalupe St. is one of the many locations AFD worries about. He said the department has responded to multiple fires there.
As KVUE was filming on Guadalupe Street, our cameras spotted a man crawling into that building through the window.
"First and foremost, we're trying to get these individuals the assistance they need, move them into appropriate housing," Smith said. "So the Homeless Strategy Office and their outreach teams, they handle that aspect of it."
AFD is now tracking any calls involving people experiencing homelessness and compiling a list of problematic locations and unsafe structures to hand over to the Code/Development Services Department.
"It's dangerous there because the structure may be substandard," Smith said. "So there's a certain danger to the firefighters as well and then, of course, to the public as well, if that fire spread and spreads to other buildings."
That's exactly what caused the Casulo Hotel to go up in flames in late February. One firefighter was injured in that fire, although Smith said in most cases, no one gets hurt.
"Fingers crossed because this could eventually, certainly, turn very tragic, one of these times," Smith said.