Fires scorch 3 Tri-Cities parks. What’s going on? Are homeless campers to blame?

A 30-acre fire through a Kennewick park on Sunday is the third to tear through a Tri-City natural area in less than a month.

And firefighters are concerned that conditions are ripe for another large wildland blaze during the upcoming holiday weekend.

“We’re seeing fire conditions that I wouldn’t expect until summer,” Kennewick Fire Chief Chad Michael said. “We need people to exercise extreme caution.”

Fire season didn’t wait this year, and so far three city parks have been hit. Normally it runs between May and October, according to the Western Fire Chiefs Association. Typically, the height of it happens in July and August.

The first blaze in the park happened just days after the beginning of May. About 3 acres of natural growth area inside Columbia Park caught fire on May 4.

Days later, lightning set off a fire on Bateman Island that burned 2 1/2 acres.

Neither of the two reached the ferocity of Sunday afternoon’s blaze that started near 10th Avenue and blackened 30 acres, destroying one home and an outbuilding and scorching another house.

The cause of both Kennewick’s fires is not clear and may never be.

In 2021, an 85-acre fire that devastated the Yakima River Delta near Richland was started at a homeless camp near a culvert along Highway 240.

And while people have speculated that the recent Kennewick fires could have been started by homeless campers often seen in those areas, Michael said there isn’t any proof that happened.

Officials believe the Columbia Park fire was likely caused by humans because there is no other reason it could have started but they don’t know who’s to blame.

And the cause of the Zintel Canyon Fire is even more uncertain even though people reported seeing several people leaving the area where the fire started.

Without more information, it’s hard to tell what sparked either blaze.

Michael explained that there may be evidence connecting it to a cause at the scene, but without a witness there isn’t any way to know for certain.

Also in many cases whatever might have started the fire is destroyed.

Both Bateman Island and Zintel Canyon are closed to hiking for now, until park workers can clear damaged trees.

Anyone with information is asked to reached Deputy Fire Marshal Ethan Bishop at 509-947-0437.

Michael pointed out that people are not allowed to camp in city parks, so if people see them there, they should call police. That way, they can respond before a camping fire gets out of control.

Natural park land

While this is the most destructive fire to happen in the area recently, it’s not unheard of in Zintel Canyon.

A series of fires raised several concerns in 2018, and prompted various city departments to form a team with the effort to make the canyon safer.

This included removing hazardous trees and pulling out overgrown vegetation. They partnered with nonprofit Team Rubicon to clear out a path so police could drive through.

Since 2018, there have been fewer fires in the area and complaints about graffitti or teens behaving recklessly have dropped off as well, Michael said.

While there were efforts to set up a neighborhood watch program in the area, they disappeared within a year.

The city has continued its efforts to monitor Zintel Canyon in recent years with regular patrols by police and fire crews, but there are limitations to what can be done with the park. Trees and brush grow with minimal interference from the city, partly because it’s an irrigation drainage area and part of a 100-year flood protection zone for the Zintel Canyon Dam.

The same is true with the section of Columbia Park and Bateman Island that burned earlier in the month.

“It’s a natural park area,” he said. “You’re not going to mow it down like Lawrence Scott Park.”

The 2018 Zintel Canyon fires combined with a devastating south Kennewick fire that destroyed five homes led fire officials to start reaching out to people living on the edge of natural areas.

It’s an annual effort the fire department has kept up. They recently reached out to 428 homes along the edge of Zintel Canyon recently, and had planned on contacting more.

Their advice is drawn from recommendations made by the National Fire Protection Association and its Firewise program. This includes making sure you don’t have any trees, bushes or other plants near your house.

Fire can quickly spread from those plants to a home.

Some other advice includes making sure you don’t have a wooden fence near the natural growth area.

“We’re going to be out sharing that message with them again like we were a couple of years ago,” Michael said.