Firefighters extinguish encampment fire early Thursday near Martin Way and Ensign Road
Olympia firefighters extinguished a large debris fire at the encampment known as the Jungle near the intersection of Martin Way East and Ensign Road early Thursday morning.
Battalion Chief J.D. Young said two engines and six firefighters responded to the blaze at about midnight. They found an 80-foot-by-80-foot fire engulfing a mound of debris and lumber. They beat back the blaze and left the area by about 2:15 a.m.
Young said people who live at the camp initially tried to dig around the fire to keep it from spreading, but they left the area when firefighters took control.
“They had shovels and rakes, and they were just trying to keep the fire from spreading laterally,” Young said. “It really wasn’t like a standard grass fire. It was more like a mound of debris.”
No one was hurt and no one claimed the mound as their own, Young said. No tents or structures were affected.
“It was isolated there,” Young said. “The rest of the temporary structures and tents were far enough away. It could have potentially gotten there if we had not been there.”
The cause of the fire remains undetermined, Young said.
“It could have been anything in there,” Young said. “There’s no way to really investigate that.”
