Catching the Fire Next Time
My colleague, Raphael Richardson, or Raph, called moments after I saw the alert. The police scanner app on my phone alerted me that fire crews were dispatched to Peck Park. The Los Angeles Fire Department reported that a fire was called in at 6:15 p.m., to the canyon west of the park. I went outside my house in search of the telltale smoke cloud that should have been hovering nearby. I didn’t see it, but Raph assured me the fire was real. Only then did I see the smoke.
I grabbed my camera and jacket and caught a ride with a cousin who was already going out. We traveled up Summerland Avenue, then turned on to Elberon. I jumped out and made my way closer before meeting up with Raph. The smoke was so bad we couldn’t even see where we were going or tell where exactly the fire was at that point.
We got there trying to find a place to go shoot some photos. I was kind of lost until I found a spot to capture still photos, but I was just getting bombarded by debris like ash and black charred stuff from the fire. I ran back home to retrieve my fire protection media gear. I have a wildland jacket similar to the ones firefighters wear with a helmet with the word “Media” emblazoned on it and a pair of goggles.
This fire only burned about an acre of grass and brush. By 8 p.m., crews stopped the spread of the 10acre fire, but it posed a threat to neighbors above the canyon.
Most of the fire was situated off of Golden Rose Street. There was another fire about a week or two earlier. By the time I got there, firefighters had already got it knocked down. The earlier fire seemed to have been
ignited around the same area. From what parkside residents have told me, there’s an encampment area down in the stream bed. But I’ve never been able to get down there because it’s steep and I don’t want to hike down by myself.
Fires seem to happen a lot around this park area. While the May 12 fire was described as a brush fire, the fire the following day in nearly the same area was determined by LAFD to be a rubbish fire with no structures burned. Then there’s the earlier brush fire on April 28. The fire department was unable to determine the cause of ignition. In any case, I always find myself at the same lookout point taking photos of these fires. I had posted some decent pictures of a small fire in the same area about a year ago.
But on May 12, helicopters performed water drops over the canyon into the evening, and crews remained on the scene through the night. Officials said there were no injuries reported, no structures were threatened, and there were no calls for evacuation. A week after the blaze, RLn learned that the investigation was closed without a determination of whether it was arson or any other cause. But many residents who live adjacent to the park suspect it was caused by the area’s unhoused neighbors encamped in the thickest brush of Peck Park canyon. Could these be some of the people that have been pushed off the sidewalks with the anti-camping ordinance? But the fires that keep happening at the same location are just one layer of the issues at Peck Park.
A few months ago, there was an armed robbery at a Subway in Park Plaza — a robbery that turned into a police chase. The suspect fled to Peck Park, pointing his gun at park goers. The police locked down the park and searched for four hours. Even with the K-9 unit, they were unable to find the gunman. Residents believed the gunman escaped by way of the drainage ditch leading out into the neighborhood.
Back in December 2021, two teenagers were shot near the skate park, but for some reason, we weren’t able to get any information on them.
When I got there, the emergency personnel were taking the victims away. The victims appeared to be teenagers. We didn’t stick around for the investigation because we couldn’t see anything — it was pitch black. Other shootings in the area seemed to have caused the San Pedro shooting to sort of fly under the radar. No one talked or even mentioned it.
We’ve had a few fires in and around my neighborhood. I’ve called the police numerous times after hearing my unhoused neighbors fighting or screaming for help. When officers arrive to investigate, they come back to me saying they didn’t see anything. That’s because the unhoused were hiding under the bridge. Every time I call the police about the bridge, they have no idea what I’m talking about. This has led to some frustrating conversations.
Before COVID-19, I had an encounter with two homeless people yelling for help for presumably their friend who was experiencing an overdose. The pair went to the gas station and had the workers there call emergency personnel. The police arrived and searched the area for the transient without success. I engaged the officers on the scene and suggested that they search a hidden cove. I don’t think they took me seriously. They called an air unit to aid in the search. The police were eventually successful, finding the body hidden exactly in the area I told them to search. The guy was dead.
A few months before the May 12 fire, two women had flagged me down for my attention because their companion, a young woman, was experiencing a heroin overdose. I quickly learned that the two women were the mother and sister of the young woman, who was unconscious and lying face down when I got to her. I turned the young woman over and did my best to keep her alert by shaking her. The sister and mother didn’t want to get the police involved. I argued with the family, that if the police did not come, the young woman would die. They said they were going to take the woman home and put her in a bathtub full of ice. I fended the sister and mother off until help arrived. The mother ultimately ran off. She didn’t want to deal with the police and fire department.
The woman stayed alert until the fire department arrived, but her eyes were so glazed over. I told the fire department personnel, “Hey, this is probably gonna be a heroin overdose. I just talked to her sister and they said she does heroin.”
The firefighters took her away in an ambulance. I don’t know what happened to her, but I think about her from time to time, wondering if she lived. She appeared normal. She didn’t look like she used heroin. But seeing something like that and nothing seemingly being done about it... it kind of pisses me off.
I’ve lived in Pedro in that neighborhood for 30 years. We had big gang problems years ago, but this, what we are experiencing now, feels all new. And considering what is going on with the fires, drugs, homelessness, and the violence... My brother had his car stolen out here. Then my neighbor’s car was broken into, then another neighbor’s car was stolen a month before that. So, there’s just a lot that’s been happening. It just sucks.
Terelle Jerricks contributed to this story.