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As the wildfires rage on in California, many wonder what is being done to stop them before they start. This is what NBC4's Investigative Team found out...
While the red flag warning was still in effect, the City of Los Angeles said that they had tried to reduce the risk of new brush fires igniting, by sending workers into homeless encampments in wilderness areas.
"We are very concerned, because, we found out sometimes in those homeless encampments people are cooking, they're providing themselves their own meals, but if those cooking fires should get out of hand, and get into the brush we have a bigger problem on our hands," said LAFD Deputy Chief Phillip Fligiel told NBC4.
After the Skirball fire last December, (that was started in a homeless camp), Mayor Eric Garcetti said that after firefighters mapped out the camps in fire zones, he would then visit the camps to persuade the homeless to move into shelters.
However, the City of Los Angeles said it can't force homeless people to leave the areas they're in, even if there is a high brush fire risk.
Since then, officials have confirmed that the fire started in Griffith Park last week was traced to a homeless encampment.
And on Tuesday night, another fire ignited in Lake View Terrace. When asked what caused that fire, firefighters said it too came from a homeless camp.
To most residents, it seems that Mayor Yoga Pants is not doing anything to solve the issue at all...
"...When we know that there are high risk days, just as we post fire warnings telling people to move their cars, those are appropriate days to take action, to prioritize and ask LAHSA to be able to go out to those places and engage and that's what our policy is now," Garcetti said.
Garcetti's office even said that police can only force the homeless campers to leave if the city has more money to install a bunch of 'no trespassing' signs.
"We're not law enforcement, so we can't get them to leave the encampments, but we do educate them, there's a fire going on, and we highly advise you to get out of those locations," Matthew Tenchavez, a manager of LAHSA's emergency response said.
But John and Ken have a better idea...
Why don't we provide the city with the signs they need, so that they can better prevent these destructive and deadly fires?!
Buy a $3.99 'No Trespassing' sign HERE, and send them to Mayor Garcetti at 200 N Spring St, Los Angeles, CA 90012.
Check out the full report on NBC4.