Three grass fires break out in Fresno. Are they connected? Here’s what a fireman says

Three grass fires broke out Tuesday night in Fresno, including one with a homeless encampment nearby.

The biggest of the fires was near Church Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in southwest Fresno, prompting 14 units to respond.

The grass fire covered 14 acres and threatened three structures.

Shane Brown, public information officer with the Fresno County Fire Department, said a homeless encampment was nearby. Investigators were determining the cause of the fire, including the possibility of arson.

No one was injured and no structures were damaged.

Brown said there’s a chance that embers from the fire at Church and MLK, with the help of strong winds, might’ve triggered a second fire that broke out less than two miles away near Elm and Annadale avenues.

A third fire occurred on the 4700 block of Golden State Boulevard, just southeast of the Highway 99 on-ramp from Shaw Avenue.

No one was injured in the fires, Brown said.

Since Saturday, there have been a total of 17 grass fires in Fresno.

Brown cites the recent weather as reason for the breakouts.

“The city has had quite a rash of grass fires since last weekend,” Brown said. “Just in the last few weeks, it got hot. Everything started drying out. And now the wind is blowing.

“So what we call fuel moisture — essentially the fuel moisture inside the grass, vegetation — it’s really dried out.”

This story was originally published May 12, 2020 at 11:29 PM.