A spate of recent fires at homeless camps in the city has prompted new questions about the thresholds for removal of the encampments during the current COVID-19 crisis. Early Saturday morning, crews were forced to close Interstate 5 in both directions because of a fire in a small homeless camp located in the middle of the highway directly underneath the Washington State Convention Center. The highway was closed because drivers could not see through the smoke. Seattle Fire Department crews had been called an hour earlier to extinguish another small blaze at a homeless camp running parallel to the highway about a quarter mile south near the I-5 southbound exit to Dearborn Street. Crews also extinguished a small grass fire in an encampment located in the 2900 block of West Galer in Seattle’s Magnolia neighborhood. No one was injured in those fires, but they have become so common place, Seattle fire has stopped sending an investigator to determine an official cause unless the blaze is significant.