"As the weather warms, police are concerned campers pose a serious fire risk in wooded areas..."

There is no doubt that in some locales, the fire risk by "illegal" campers is off the charts. When I was living in Northeastern California, along highway 70 just west of Keddie, there was an absolutely spectacular spot alongside the Feather River that locals called "hobo camp." The train through the Feather River Canyon has to slow to a crawl in this area in order to navigate curves and a fairly steep slope, then pass through a tunnel and onto the famous double-bridge known as the Keddie "Wye."

All along the river here are campsites that squatters use for rest, supply replenishment, gold panning, and general debauchery.

The problem of course is that because the camps are at the river's edge in the bottom of a canyon, a campfire that gets out of control in this area has unbelievable potential to wreak havoc on thousands of acres of pristine and scenic Sierra Nevada forest land - and fires have been started at this location more than a few times.

Here in Nashville, the risk is far more limited, but still real in some areas, especially down on the shore of the Cumberland, where trees and the detritus from them become tinder-dry in the summer heat. For the most part, fires down in the camps are typically carefully watched and tended, but given the proclivity of some of the folks down there for heavy spirit imbibing, there is a risk that a fire gets left unattended for a period of time. Fortunately, there is little to burn in most of these areas besides trash and the camps themselves, so the fire risk is negligible from a firefighting/fire destruction perspective...

Police take to sky to find homeless

Canwest News Service

Published: Friday, June 20, 2008

SAANICH - Police have taken to the sky to search for homeless people camping in Saanich parks.

Officers used one of the provincial RCMP's helicopters this week to scour the more than 150 municipal parks.

It was the first time they've used aerial surveillance to spot the hard-to-see camps of homeless people, said Saanich police Const. Brad Brajcich.

As the weather warms, police are concerned campers pose a serious fire risk in wooded areas, said Brajcich.

Officers spotted two suspicious-looking areas on Monday in Cuthbert Holmes Park, near Admirals Road and the Trans-Canada Highway. The police bike squad investigated the sites Tuesday but they appeared abandoned, said Const. Michael Gee. "It was something that had been there for some time," said Gee.

Police called the experiment successful and suggested they may try helicopter surveillance again in the future.