Fire breaks out in the ‘Jungle’ homeless encampment on Martin Way Thursday evening

A fire in a homeless encampment know as “the Jungle” sent multiple Olympia Fire Department (OFD) units and police vehicles out to Martin Way on Thursday evening.

About 5:15 p.m., Olympia Fire Department received calls describing black smoke rising from the trees near 3201 Martin Way E. Three units arrived at the scene at 5:20 p.m. to find smoke coming from the wooded area behind Fatso’s Bar and Grill. Olympia Police arrived to help direct traffic around the fire engines parked on Martin Way.

Dispatch had informed firefighters that tents in the encampment had caught fire. But when OFD arrived, they instead found a 50-foot-by-50-foot pile of debris on fire inside the vacant encampment, with flames rising towards the area’s surrounding trees.

The firefighters quickly attacked the flames with a hose, successfully preventing the fire from spreading through the woods. After about an hour, the fire was extinguished.

OFD has not determined the cause of the fire. No one was at the site when engines arrived, nor when they left at 6:40 p.m.

No one was injured in the blaze nor while it was being extinguished.

This story was originally published July 10, 2020 at 11:27 AM.