Authorities were trying to determine over the weekend whether a grass fire that burned through a portion of a homeless camp Saturday afternoon just north of Visalia was intentionally set.
“Everything’s gone! I have nothing,” a resident of the camp known as “Tent City” screamed out as she surveyed the damage from flames that burned through the campsite on the north bank of the St. Johns River, west of Ben Maddox Way.
Her face awash in tears, the woman clutched the leashes of her three dogs and fell to her knees, as one of her neighbors walked to her and held her friend, who called out, “What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do?”
A few minutes earlier, the woman who provided the hug — who didn’t identify herself and declined to be interviewed — used a towel to beat back flames burning through the dry grass that surrounds the makeshift campsites to keep them from burning her few possessions. Then she stopped to stuff what she could into suitcases and duffel bags and tossed them down a small hill separating the riverbank from an irrigation ditch to keep the possessions out of harms way.