‘You’re negligent’: Upset Juniper Ridge neighbors express frustration with city handling of Juniper Ridge homeless camps
(Update: adding video)
From managed camps to fuel breaks and defensible space, fire brings heightened sense of urgency
BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) – The Bend City Council heard emotional testimony from residents Wednesday night in the wake of the Mile Marker 132 Fire. Several evacuated residents explained how they're living in fear of future fires started by unmanaged homeless encampments in Juniper Ridge.
“Imagine living in fear, day and night,” Deschutes Market Road resident Linda Cook tearfully told councilors, one of the many Juniper Ridge neighbors who on Friday had to flee their fire-threatened home for the second time in four years.
The homeless campers on the mostly public property next to them has been costly, in quality of life and more. The fear is palpable.
Cook, who has lived on her property for 29 years, said, "I'm not eating or sleeping, and this has been going on since they started moving back there."
“Our fence line defines us,” Cook said.
And it's not just the fire danger, but crime:
"The gunfire is extremely scary, Once I counted 99 rapid-fire shots, and then I stopped counting," Cook said, her voice quavering. "My husband has had two bullets whiz by his head, and we're out there with the county sheriff trying to find the holes that it made in our house."
As for Friday's fire – when authorities say a homeless camper’s abandoned cooking fire on a nearby vacant lot sparked the Mile Marker 132 Fire - Cook described a long 25 minutes loading their RV and grabbing documents in 104-degree heat as the blaze blew up.
“If you aren’t going to move them, please, please give us a large fire break,” Cook said. “Please, please do something. Oregon is a beautiful state, and it’s burning up.”
Sherry Van Dyke, who also had to evacuate again, said she lives about a mile from the homeless camp area known as Dirt World, and the fire risk threatens her livelihood.
"Our lives, our homes and our cities are at risk from less than 1% of the population, most of whom refuse to refuse help and want to continue to live in the forest," she said. "And it seems like the Bend City Council cares more about that 1% than they do the 99%."
"Everything I have worked for my entire life is in my home," Van Dyke said. "And once again, it was threatened by fire, due to this situation that nobody's addressing. Enough is enough. I believe you're negligent in allowing this to grow. We want managed, sanctioned camps. We want you to work with the county to complete this."
"You’ve spent $40 million in two years, and it’s worse," she said. "Drug treatment, job training – whatever it takes.” But Vandyke also said that the Juniper Ridge homeless are provided with weekly trash and other services, “gift cards, food, clothing – everything to stay at the level they are at.”
Kebler told those who spoke, “I’m very sorry for what you went through. …. "We've also had a number of folks, your neighbors, also writing to us on email that we've responded to as well. So I understand that. I hear the frustration and we will continue to work on the problem and move forward with actual positive action."
Bend Fire Chief Todd Riley was already scheduled to start the council meeting with a fire season briefing. Last year, he had relatively little to talk about. This year… a vastly different story, even before Friday's fire.
Thankfully, due to the red flag fire conditions, the Oregon State Fire Marshal’s Office had just deployed two task forces to Redmond, and they played a crucial early role in tackling the blaze, before being called three hours later to yet another fire, west of Prineville.
“The cooperation worked, communication worked, evacuation levels worked, but it was a high-profile and high-anxiety fire in our town,” Riley said, and they were “tremendously fortunate” that no structures burned or people injured.
As it turns out, city Real Estate Director Matt Stuart was on the scene Friday when the fire broke out. He told councilors he’s “out there almost once a week, checking things out for any suspicious activity, making sure the houseless are aware of the rules, complying with policies.”
On Friday, he was posting notices for no campfires, after Deschutes County imposed those rules, and visiting some 50 camps, handing out 40 fire extinguishers, when the fire broke out, leading to “a very first-hand experience” and “tremendous respect for the fire team” that tackled it.
Stuart said a 60-foot fire break was done during a sewer line installation, and “I think it helped,” and a new road was cut in from 18th Street last year to enable full apparatus access, among other recent efforts. They also over the last year worked with 911 and Bend Fire to map out the routes within Juniper Ridge.
Stuart said he knows nearby residents want more, and they are exploring more defensible space for homes north of Northpointe Park, for example. Mayor Melanie Kebler said if it’s a matter of funding, that can happen, and Councilor Ariel Mendez asked if they need to be considering more fire breaks and defensible space, “taking this very seriously, doing what we can."
The frightening fire with close to a month at least of fire season still to come led to much discussion about steps to curb the danger.
City councilors already had a joint meeting planned Sept. 5 with county commissioners on the Juniper Ridge issues, and Stuart said close to $300,000 spent by the two governments in the past year to create a safer environment has led to a reduction in fire calls. He said a joint plan to manage the area also would help reduce the risk of crime.
Councilor Barb Campbell asked if they could use the revenue from property sales at Juniper Ridge to create fire breaks, and Stuart said it’s “something we can definitely work on.”
City Manager Eric King said they are working to refine proposals for coordinated, on-site managed camps, with issues such as access and infrastructure to work out.
Councilor Anthony Broadman said they need to look at closing areas to camping and “work together to find areas that are fire-safe, rather than be in this exact same situation next year.”
